IBO super middleweight champion Chris Eubank Jr. (24-1, 19 KOs) will be facing one of his toughest challenges of his career next Saturday night on July 15 in defending his IBO belt against Arthur Abraham (46-5, 30 KOs) at the Wembley Arena in London, England.
This is a fight that will be shown on pay-per-view for the boxing fans interested in seeing it badly enough. It’s a good fight, but as a PPV fight, it’s going to be a tough sell. The 37-year-old Abraham is only 2 fights removed from his one-sided 12 round unanimous decision loss to Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez last year in April 2016. That fight left a strong imprint in the minds of a lot of boxing fans with the way that Abraham was so badly dominated by Ramirez.
This is a big fight for the 27-year-old Eubank Jr., as he can show the boxing world what kind of talent he has going for him. Eubank Jr. has done a lot of trash talking in the last year about how he believes he can beat fighters like Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, Billy Joe Saunders and James DeGale. When Eubank Jr. did step it up against Saunders in 2014, he lost to him by a 12 round split decision. To be sure, Eubank Jr. rallied and was coming on at the end, but he still lost though.
The former 2-division world champion Abraham needs a win in this fight to keep his career afloat. He’s going to be coming after Eubank Jr’s chin looking to knock him out. Eubank Jr. has respectable power of his own, but not to the extent of Abraham. This is the biggest puncher that Eubank Jr. will have faced. Eubank Jr. had a chance to mix it up with middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last year, but he didn’t make a move on the fight in time to get the match. It’s too bad for Eubank Jr. That would have made a name for him. Kell Brook took the fight and was competitive with Golovkin in losing by a 5th round knockout.
Eubank Jr., 27, recently won the IBO title in beating Renold Quinlan by a 10th round knockout. This was an interesting choice for Eubank Jr. to pick Quinlan, because if he’d stayed at middleweight, he could have fought Golovkin at some point. There’s no getting around the fact that Eubank Jr. messed up by not taking the fight with Golovkin when it was there on the able for him last year in September.
Eubank Jr. should have made the move to take that fight. Instead, Eubank Jr. had to settle for fighting for the IBO super middleweight title against Quinlan. The super middleweight division is probably not the right division for Eubank Jr. He doesn’t have the size or the power to go far in this division. Eubank Jr. is not facing the more dangerous guys yet, but once he starts, it’s likely going to be over quickly for him as a champion. There are dangerous guys at 168 like George Groves, David Benavidez, Callum Smith, Jose Uzcategui and Anthony Dirrell.
Eubank Jr. is ranked #5 WBC, #8 IBF at 168. He’s in the position to fight for one of the major world titles if he wants to. It would be smart for Eubank Jr. to dump the lower level belt and go for one of the major titles that will open the doors for him to fight the well-known ranked contenders instead of facing guys that are past their best. Abraham was a good fighter 7 years ago before he moved up to super middleweight, but his career hasn’t been the same ever since he moved up in weight. He’s not been as effective in this weight class compared to when he held a world title at middleweight.
Abraham spent five years fighting Robert Stieglitz over and over again with the two German based swapping the WBO super middleweight title back and forth to each other. It was like watching somebody play tea party in elementary school play 4-square. Stieglitz and Abraham fought each other repeatedly.
The WBO stayed with them. It wasn’t until Gilberto Ramirez finally stepped in to beat Abraham in 2016 that he was able to end the back and forth fights involving the WBO title between Abraham and Stieglitz. Abraham is rated #1 by the World Boxing Organization. It’s interesting that he’s chosen to fight Eubank Jr. instead of waiting for a rematch with Ramirez. I guess the pay-per-view money for the fight with Eubank Jr. makes it the better option for Abraham than fighting Ramirez on regular television.
In the co-feature bout, IBF World featherweight champion Lee Selby (24-1, 9 KOs) will be making his third defense of his IBF belt against #1 IBF Jonathan Barros (41-4-1, 22 KOs). This fight might prove to be the toughest of Selby’s 9-year pro career. Barros, 33, can punch a little bit, and he’s experienced in having been in with the likes of Mikey Garcia, Juan Carlos Salgado, Celestino Caballero, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Satosi Hosono.
Unfortunately for Barros, he’s lost to most of those guys. That’s the main negative. Never the less Barros was competitive with those guys. He even beat Caballero by a 12 round split decision in 2011. This was not the same Caballero who held the WB World super bantamweight title from 2006 to 2010. It was still impressive that Barros was able to beat a talented fighter like Caballero.
Selby, 30, has been taking it easy in milking his IBF title since winning it 2 years ago in beating Evgeny Gradovich. Selby had said he was going to get some title padding fights under his belt before he looked to take on the bigger names in the featherweight division, and that’s exactly what he’s done. By padding his record with soft defenses, Selby has missed out on fighting guys like Mikey Garcia, Orlando Salido and Vasyl Lomachenko. Those would have been good paydays for Selby if he’s stepped up against any of those guys.
Hopefully for Selby’s sake he doesn’t waste his career padding his record defending his IBF title against weaker opponents without being involved in at least one unification fight. Selby is 30 now, and it’s only a matter of time before he loses his title. As of now, Scott Quigg is rated #2 by the International Boxing Federation and Carl Frampton No.3. If that’s not bad enough, Joseph Diaz Jr. is rated No.4, and Josh Warrington No.5. Selby would likely be capable of beating Warrington, but not Quigg, Frampton or Diaz Jr.