The Hatfield star, who had travelled from his training camp in Marbella with trainer Jimmy Tibbs, was stood up for the third time in a row by the seaside keyboard warrior who was replaced on the top table with a cardboard cutout.
Chris Eubank Snr’s reason for not letting his son not attend the press conference was because he claimed the security provided by promoter Frank Warren was not adequate for the safety of his son, following comments that Saunders would “slap” Eubank Jnr.
#9 WBO 160lb contender Chris Eubank Jr (18-0, 11 KOs) methodically broke down his 25-year-old opponent Omar Siala (23-18-3, 10 KOs) before stopping him in the 2nd round last night at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England.
Eubank Jr landed a tremendous right uppercut that sent Siala reeling towards the ropes. Eubank Jr then followed up with four additional uppercuts before referee Alvin Finch stepped in to stop the fight before Eubank Jr could seriously hurt Siala.
The Tyson Fury vs. Dereck Chisora card just got a whole lot better with the news that middleweight contenders Chris Eubank Jr (17-0, 12 KOs) and Billy Joe Saunders (20-0, 11 KOs) will be facing each other on the undercard on November 29th at the Excel Arena in London, England.
Saunders and Eubank Jr have been taking verbal shots at each other for the past few months and now they get the chance to prove themselves.
Saunders, 25, missed out on fighting for the vacant WBO middleweight crown when the WBO opted to let WBO 154lb champion Demetrius Andrade move up in weight to fight for the vacant WBO middleweight title against #1 WBO Matt Korobov (24-0, 14 KOs) instead of letting Saunders, #2 WBO, get the shot. The logical choice would have been to have Saunders fighting Korobov for the WBO title, because Saunders was the next highest ranked contender for the vacant belt. But Andrade applied for the spot and was given the shot ahead of Saunders.
The judges scored it 115-113, 117-111 for Butler, and 115-113 for Hall. Butler was very impressive with the beautiful combinations, the speed and the angles he was throwing his punches from. If had a little more power on his shots, it would have been a cut and dried case of him being the better fighter, but he didn’t have anywhere near the same kind of power that Hall did on his punches.
After the fight Butler said he would give Hall a rematch in order to clear up the controversy about the decision. Whether Hall gets a rematch or not remains to be seen.