Liam Smith ideally wanted his fight with Chris Eubank Jr. to be contested as close as possible to the junior middleweight limit.
But the longtime 154-pound contender from Liverpool found out during negotiations it was never going to be realistic trying to extract that particular concession from Eubank.
Smith and Eubank will face each other in a middleweight bout Jan. 21 at AO Arena in Manchester, England. Eubank was originally supposed to engage welterweight Conor Benn in a 157-pound catchweight bout in October, but three days out from the fight it was revealed that Benn had tested positive for a banned substance. The fight, after much brouhaha, was cancelled.
Eubank, who expressed much concern about making the 157-pound limit for the Benn fight, subsequently turned his attention to Smith. In a recent interview, Smith said that the Benn fallout essentially erased his hopes of getting Eubank to fight at a similarly low weight.
“I would have liked it to be 159, 158lbs,” Smith told Sky Sports. “But you've seen the big stink with the 157 pound thing with Conor Benn [for the fight that fell through] and I knew I was never going to get him that low.”
Smith realized, however, that the fact that he is physically larger than Benn means Eubank was never going to entertain the idea of conceding even a pound from the middleweight limit.
"But I also know that with the fear and doubtful side on their part also, they're not going to fight me at 157 or 158 pounds,” Smith said of Eubank and his team. “They won't even fight me at 159 pounds. They know they're in a fight. They know their weakness in the fight also. So they're not going to give me any advantage because they know they're in a fight this time.”
"I do think he respects me,” Smith added. "He'd be stupid not to.”
Smith (32-3-1 19 KOs) is riding a three-fight win streak. He is coming off a fourth-round stoppage of Hassan Mwakinyo. Eubank (32-2, 23 KOs) last fought in February, a points win over countryman Liam Williams in Cardiff.