Middleweight contender Chris Eubank Jr 33-3 (24) has called out Gennadiy Golovkin 42-2-1 (37) following his revenge win over Liam Smith 33-4-1 (20) at the AO Arena in Manchester, England on Saturday night.
The 33-year-old Englishman bounced back from his fourth-round knockout loss to Smith at the same venue in January with a dominant performance that saw the 35-year-old former WBO junior middleweight champion on the canvas twice before being stopped on his feet at the 1:45 mark of the 10th round by referee Kevin Parker.
The bad blood between the two camps faded away after the fight with Eubank Jr acknowledging his opponent.
“Liam is a warrior. I respect him, his team, his family and his brothers. They always come out and put it all on the line,” Eubank Jr said.
“He fought until the last second, so big up to Liam and his team… I’m not going to lie, what happened tonight was supposed to happen in January. Like I said, it wasn’t my night.
“I trained hard for that fight, I trained hard for this fight. The focus is always there. I dedicate my life to this sport. Now we’re onto bigger and better fights. There’s some big names out there.”
Smith was never able to work himself into the contest and admitted cutting weight for the fight may have affected his performance.
“I was flat. I think the weight killed me. I was flat and Chris was sharp. Chris was the better man tonight,” he said.
While Smith licks his wounds and ponders his future, Eubank Jr seemingly has his pick of opponents with welterweight Conor Benn 21-0 (14) and former IBF 147-pound champion Kell Brook 40-3 (28) lining up to fight him.
The 26-year-old Benn has never boxed at middleweight while Brook, 37, has made one excursion to the 160-pound weight class. It ended badly in five rounds when Golovkin gave him a hiding and fractured his right eye socket.
“There’s some big names out there. I see a few of these guys in the crowd. I’m coming for you Conor, I’m coming for you Kell. I’m coming for you. Anybody else who wants it, we’re going to put on a show for the fans,” Eubank Jr said.
The other name Eubank Jr wants to face is long time middleweight boss Golovkin.
The 41-year-old Kazakh has not fought since his unsuccessful bid to wrest the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF super middleweight titles from old nemesis Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez 59-2-2 (39) one year ago.
He has since relinquished both his WBA and IBF middleweight titles and is yet to make an announcement about his future plans.
If Golovkin does decide to box on, he will have one ready opponent waiting for him.
“Listen, I wanna fight GGG,” Eubank Jr said. “I don’t know where he is right now but wherever you are Gennadiy, you’ve been holding on to them belts for too long. I want to take one, so let’s get in on if we can.”
