British middleweights Billy Joe Saunders and Chris Eubank Jr. have verbally attacked each other throughout the promotion for their fight and talked of their dislike for each other. Take that and add in what is at stake and the fight has the makings of something memorable.
Saunders, 25, a 2008 British Olympian, and Eubank, 25, son of former middleweight and super middleweight titleholder Chris Eubank Sr., meet Saturday (ESPN3.com, 3:40 p.m. ET) at the ExCel Arena in London in the co-feature on the card headlined by the heavyweight world title elimination fight (and rematch) between Tyson Fury and Dereck Chisora.
Saunders (21-0, 11 KOs) and Eubank (18-0, 13 KOs) will square off for Saunders’ European, Commonwealth and British titles; this is also an eliminator for the right to be the mandatory challenger for a world title against the winner of the vacant title bout between Matt Korobov and Andy Lee on Dec. 13 in Las Vegas.
Saunders was offended that Eubank skipped out on three news conference appearances before finally showing up at one this week.
“Fair play to Eubank, he’s come here alone without his dad holding his hand,” Saunders said. “He says he deal with me in six or seven rounds, so we’ll see on Saturday night if he’s talking his usual bull. He’s faced nobody in his career. When you read down his record is there a name that you can pronounce? I’m the first name that you can say. I’m not some unknown from Latvia.
“I've not had a silver spoon in my mouth like ol’ Chrissy boy. I’ll keep saying it -- if he beats me on Saturday night I’ll retire full stop. I refuse to lose to Eubank Jr.”
Eubank gave it right back to Saunders.
“I’m here, I came alone, I don’t need anybody to deal with the likes of an average Joe like Billy Joe Saunders,” he said. “I told my dad to stay at home, put his feet up and let me come down here for an hour and listen to what average Joe has to say. Now that my training is done and I’ve got some time to wind down, I’ll see what he has to say.
“Let’s remember -- he’s the champion holding the belts, yet he’s the one calling me out. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? He’s just holding those belts for me, keeping them warm until Saturday night when I take them off him. All I’ll say to him is he’s swimming with a shark, and if he’s doing that he’d better be able to swim very fast.”