Former four division champion Roy Jones Jr, who currently serves as the head trainer of Chris Eubank Jr, has said that his fighter is in a positive state of mind despite his first stoppage loss.
Last Saturday night in Manchester, Eubank Jr was stopped in the fourth round by the unexpected Liam Smith, who had moved up to the middleweight division. After three rounds of competitive action, Smith trapped Eubank against the ropes and unleashed a flurry of powerful punches to knock him down. Eubank managed to get back up but was soon dropped for a second time, prompting the referee to end the fight.
At the moment, it looks like Eubank is leaning towards exercising his right to an immediate rematch.
“He has taken the loss much better than I did! He was like, ‘OK, I guess 50 percent didn’t work, I guess I’ll come back at 75.’ He is still joking and having a good time, so he understands, this is boxing and when you challenge the best boxers in the world, this might happen,” Jones told IFL TV.
Jones, who was once thought to be unbeatable until he was knocked out by Antonio Tarver, gave Eubank some personal advice.
“I just told him, ‘Hey, it’s happens.’ We have times in the gym, we have talks in the gym, we have things that we do and until that happens there’s certain things it’s going to be hard for a coach to say to a fighter,” Jones said.
“I explained to him that I would rather take a body shot than a head shot. He replied, ‘No, I’m the other way round, I’d rather get hit with a head shot than a body shot.’ Well, he’s never been hurt to the head, so of course he’s going to think that. He’s not going to say anything different because he’s never been down from a head shot. Now, he understands what I mean from that because I’ve experienced that, now he can see what I was talking about. I don’t know if he goes straight back into [a rematch] but I do know he wants it.”
