Chris Eubank Jr 32-3 (23) sacked his trainer Roy Jones Jr after losing faith in him during camp for the first Liam Smith 33-3-1 (20) fight.
That is the belief of International Boxing Hall of Famer Jones, who was replaced by coach Brian ‘Bomac’ McIntyre for his rematch with Smith at the AO Arena in Manchester, England this Saturday.
In their first bout in January, the 33-year-old Eubank started well enough but veteran Smith, 35, found his range and timing to drop the favourite twice in the fourth round and force the stoppage.
Jones was a casualty of that loss and says he saw worrying signs from Eubank in his preparation for the bout.
“I think complacency was a factor going into that fight,” Jones told Sporting Post. “It affected his training completely because usually he would listen to what I’d tell him to do. But during that training camp there were several times where he’d question me, or if I’d tell him something, he’d beg to differ.
“When they start to question you they either don’t believe you, or they’re second guessing what you’re saying, so if you’re second guessing what I’m saying, you should go with someone you believe, so I’m glad he’s gone with Bomac.
“Bomac is fresh to him and maybe he can develop some faith in Bomac, because one day during training for the Smith fight, a sparring partner threw a headshot and Chris went to protect his body and tried to [dodge] the head shot off.
“I told him it’s better to protect the head shot than the body shot and he told me that he begged to differ. I’m the pound-for-pound greatest fighter of all time saying that, but I said okay because I’ve never seen Chris hurt and I’ve never seen him down, so you can’t argue with that.
“But when you start saying things like that, to me it means you’re losing confidence in what I’m telling you.
“I think he lost faith in me. I don’t why, but when he started questioning me, to me that’s an immediate sign you don’t believe what I’m telling you. All because you’ve not been knocked down before, you’re questioning what I’m saying.
“I don’t care if you’ve not been knocked down before, a shot to the body isn’t going to leave a cut on your stomach. Nobody will get cut from a body shot, but a head shot can leave you cut, so I was talking from experience, but when you question that, then it puts a little bit of a damper on things.
“But now you’ve been down, you can’t argue with me now. Because now you understand why I said it. Sometimes when you get complacent, people don’t heed advice. I think he thought Smith would be a little bit easier than it turned out to be.”
