By Edward Chaykovsky
This coming Monday will be very important in the career of British middleweight champion Chris Eubank Jr. (23-1, 18KOs).
Promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport is planning to meet with him, and hoping to finalize the details for a fall blockbuster against WBC/WBA/IBO/IBF middleweight world champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs).
Hearn is currently in serious negotiations with Golovkin's promoter, Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions. The two sides are discussing a September date in the UK.
Eubank made the first defense of his British belt on Saturday, with a vicious four round beating of overmatched domestic contender Tom Doran at the O2 Arena in London. He sent Doran down four times in the contest before the referee had seen enough.
Golovkin had been in talks to face Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez - but last week Canelo's team revealed that more time is necessary before the boxer heads up to 160-pounds and they postponed the possibility of facing GGG until September of 2017. Also, Canelo announced that he was returning to 154 pounds to pursue the WBO title in a showdown with Liam Smith on September 17th.
There were also some discussions held for Golovkin to face WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders. Loeffler advised BoxingScene.com that Saunders had little to no interest in facing Golovkin in the fall.
Eubank appears to be the last option standing, for the moment.
"If it's the right deal it could happen in September. Wembley is where we would like to stage it, or the O2," Hearn stated, according to Nick Parkinson. "No one is queuing up to fight Golovkin. Canelo has lost face, Billy Joe Saunders didn't want it. There seems to be only one world class fighter who is a big enough name who's prepared to fight him."
