By Terence Dooley
Chris Eubank Junior's unusual ploy of taking an eight-threes warm-up ahead of his November 29th EBU middleweight title showdown with Billy Joe Saunders was made all the more daring with today's news that Wolverhampton's Jez Wilson will not be in the opposite corner at the Echo Arena on October 25th, leaving the 17-0 (12) contender in search of an opponent for his pre-title fight sharpener.
The 25-year-old discussed the Saunders fight during a press conference in London earlier today. EBU titlist Saunders joined in via Skype, at one point offering to pay Eubank £20,000 to nix his October date. Saunders, 20-0 (11), is worried that his prospective opponent will pick up an injury, so the offer was not a strictly altruistic one.
Eubank, though, wants to fight on this month's Echo Arena show. Steve Lillis of BoxNation informed BoxingScene that Wilson is not in the frame for that date. Frank Warren's office then confirmed that Eubank's opponent has yet to be nailed down, which only adds to the intrigue surrounding this fight.
A growing number of boxing fans have questioned Eubank's decision-making process, arguing that it is foolish to take an interim fight, but the Brighton-born boxer is taking a big step up in class on November 29th so may want to get some rounds in beforehand. In all the excitement surrounding the domestic dust up, the fact that Eubank has never won an eliminator—let alone a title—yet has somehow nabbed himself a big title showdown has become lost in the mix.
Indeed, Eubank is in the same position his father was in at the start of 1990. Eubank Senior may have gone on to win two WBO titles, at 160 and 168lbs respectively, but he was seen as an eccentric, unknown quantity going into his first major title winning year. Wins over Huge Antonio Corti and Kid Milo (in March and September of that year) were seen as scant preparation for his WBO showdown with Nigel Benn, who had just stopped Iran Barkley in a single round in Las Vegas.
However, Eubank came of age on November 18th 1990 by stopping Been in the ninth round of a thrilling encounter, going from an upstart who had not earned his spurs to a world title holder in the space of a single year. Eubank's victory was built on a key psychological edge—he crawled right under Benn's skin from the start and lived there like a parasite until the fight itself.
Eubank Junior seems to be treading a similar path, he has maintained a wall of stoical stillness throughout the build-up to his litmus test against Saunders. Billy Joe's intervention during today's presser could either be part and parcel of selling the fight, or a sign that the 25-year-old has fallen into the same trap that did for Benn. We'll get our answers to that one at London's ExCel Arena in November, presuming of course that Eubank comes through his October date unscathed. If Eubank can get Saunders on tenterhooks this close to the fight, he may well feel he'll have him completely on the hook going into the biggest challenge of his career thus far.
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