Chris Eubank Jr. believes there is more momentum than ever for a clash between him and British compatriot Kell Brook.
The middleweight contender called out Sheffield’s Brook to a fight soon after Brook notched a career-defining sixth-round stoppage over bitter rival Amir Khan in Manchester last Saturday.
The Brighton native said he was impressed by Brook’s dominant performance and believes the stoppage win makes for an ideal lead-in to a bout of their own. Brook had Khan on wobbly legs from the first round and battered him in the fifth, before the referee halted the bout in the sixth.
“If he had nicked a win or got a points decision then the fight wouldn’t interest me at all,” Eubank Jr said of Brook in an interview with Mirror Fighting. “When he dominates a world class fighter like Amir Khan, that is credible stuff and is the stuff that makes me think ‘can he do it against me?’
Eubank and Brook have some common history, so they are no strangers to rumors about facing each other. Eubank believes Brook stole his thunder years ago when Brook moved up in weight and fought Gennadiy Golovkin, whom Eubank was hoping to fight.
Brook, however, made it clear that he would not fight Eubank above 155 pounds.
“155lbs, otherwise don’t mention my name,” Brook wrote in a tweet to Eubank after the Khan fight.
Eubank (32-2, 23 KOs) himself has been adamant that Brook (40-3, 28 KOs) should move up to 160 pounds, since he had no issues moving up to that weight limit when he fought Golovkin.
On the political end, it helps that both fighters are aligned with Sky Sports.
“We are both coming on the back of big wins, we are both on Sky Sports so that fight makes a lot of sense,” Eubank said.
“Let’s get it on and give the public what they want because there is history and ‘beef’ between us.”
Eubank stated that he hopes to fight two more times this year. He still has high hopes of fighting Golovkin (41-1-1, 36 KOs), who is projected to face Ryota Murata in the spring. Eubank is coming off a 12-round unanimous decision over Liam Williams on Feb. 5 in Cardiff.
“I want to fight two more times this year, once in the summer and then in the winter," Eubank Jr. said. “Nothing official yet however Golovkin is a very hard man to pin down.
“We are trying our best but there is a lot of politics in boxing and a lot of hoops you have to jump through to get a world title shot. Time will tell and the fight will happen but whether it will happen next I am not sure but we are trying everything we can to pin him down.”
