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.
Saunders looks like the real deal, but can’t know that for sure due his meager opposition he’s faced. If he can dominate Eubank Jr and beat him in style, it’ll say a lot about the future Saunders has. The same thing with Eubank Jr. He looks very good right now, and his power seems to have improved recently. His punching power was always his weak spot in his game, but at 24, Eubank Jr is showing a lot better power than he did a couple of years ago.
The addition of Saunders-Eubank Jr to the Chisora vs. Fury 2 card should be able to help ticket sales. The card is a lot better with Saunders vs. Eubank Jr added to it since some boxing fans feel that the Chisora-Fury 2 fight will be another mismatch like their previous fight in 2011. Chisora has won 5 consecutive fights, albeit against weak opposition. He was beaten each time he stepped up in losses to Vitali Klitschko, Robert Helenius and David Haye since his loss to Fury.
“Saunders has done everything asked of him so far winning British, Commonwealth, WBO Intercontinental, and European titles and as he’s shown, the better the opponent the better he performs,” said promoter Frank Warren via Skysports.com. “This will certainly be the case against the young Eubank Jnr and he’ll take his game to another level.”
