British middleweight Chris Eubank Jr. believes boxing fans—his haters, included—missed out on a potential barnburner of a fight last year when a referee decided he was not fit to continue against Liam Smith.

Brighton’s Eubank suffered a shocking fourth-round knockout loss to Liverpool’s Smith last January at AO Arena in Manchester.

It was announced Tuesday that the rematch has been set at the same venue on June 17. The card will also feature the women’s undisputed super middleweight championship between titlist Franchon Crews-Dezurn and Savannah Marshall.

Eubank, who briefly contemplated pursuing a fight with embattled welterweight Conor Benn instead of with Smith, was adamant during a press conference in London that he believes referee Victor Loughlin was too hasty in his decision to waive off the bout with Smith after he suffered a lone knockdown, saying that the fans deserved to see a more definitive conclusion, even if it meant that Eubank would incur even a greater beatdown. On the other hand, Eubank noted that had the fight not been stopped in the fourth round, he could have mounted a comeback that perhaps would have spawned a two-way battle reminiscent of the sui generis tussles between Arturo Gatti and Mickey ward.

To that end, Eubank even remarked that he would not allow his own trainer, Roy Jones Jr., to throw in the towel should he find himself in similar conditions in the rematch.

“They’re the fans,” Eubank told iFL TV. “They’re the guys that buy the tickets and buy the pay-per-view to see me get my ass kicked. And they were robbed because it was not a conclusive stoppage. On my feet, I’m saying let’s continue. Would I have taken more punishment? Possibly, yes. So the guys who wanted to see me lose, the guys who come in dreaming about this for months and weeks—‘oh my God I have to be there the night Eubank gets his ass handed to him’—they didn’t get to see that.

“The fight just got cut too quickly. I dominated for three rounds and then it’s over so they were robbed of that. The fans—the real fans—were robbed of seeing that fantasy fight, that Gatti-Ward-esque performance of getting hurt and coming back to win. Overcoming the odds, getting through that pressure, pain, grit in your teeth, biting down on your gumshield, and pulling out a victory when you’re hurt.

“Those are the fights that fighters fantasize being in and those are the fights that fans fantasize about seeing. It could have been one of those. Or it could have just been me getting my ass kicked. We’ll never know now because the referee was so quick to waive it off.”