Middleweight Chris Eubank Jr 32-3 (23) is not only promising to defeat Liam Smith 33-3-1 (20) in their rematch at the AO Arena in Manchester, England on Saturday night, he says it is going to be an “artistic display of savage boxing”.
Eubank’s first fight against Smith at the same venue in January ended badly for him when he was stopped in the fourth round.
But this time around, says Eubank, things will be different.
“The performance will be exquisite, supernatural, a beautiful artistic display of savage boxing,” Eubank said.
“Even to Liam, he may not admit it, he was not expecting the [first] fight to go how it finished. Nobody did. I have to prove that I am the better fighter. Me saying it, me believing it, is not enough.
“If he pulls it off again, I can’t argue with anybody. I can’t argue with him. I can’t argue with the boxing public. He will be the better fighter and that will be it.”
The 33-year-old Eubank is still not ready to admit that his loss to was anything more than a spot of bad luck.
“The miracle was you walking away with a win over me. You shouldn’t have won the fight and I am going to rectify that,” Eubank said to Smith at the final press conference on Thursday.
Former WBO middleweight champion Smith fired back: “Which shot was the miracle, Chris? The miracle was how easy it was. If he makes the same mistakes, I’ll punish him for them.”
Eubank admitted that he is under additional pressure in what will be his first chance to avenge a professional loss.
“It is a new pressure that I have never had to deal with before. But I’m enjoying it,” he said.
“I’m enjoying the hardship I’m having to go through mentally and physically to execute the game plan on the night.
“I’m excited to go out there and see how I react.”
Eubank’s promoter Ben Shalom says his boxer has been singularly focused on this fight from the moment he was dealt the L from Smith nine months ago.
“Chris has stuck with what he thought as soon as he got out of the ring in January: that this fight was something he had to do, something he wanted to do despite there being bigger money offers out there,” the Boxxer boss told the Daily Mail.
“He deserves a lot of credit for that. Throughout his career, Chris has been targeted for taking the easy option. This is certainly not the easy option. This is where he wants to prove what a great fighter he is, to cement his legacy and to show that what happened in January wasn’t the end of his career but what he would call a ‘miracle’.
“There wasn’t one moment when I thought this fight would not happen. I knew both fighters wanted the fight and ultimately if they want to get in the ring, they’ll make sure it happens.”
