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Roy Jones Thinks Chris Eubank's Recent Upset Loss Might Compel Him to Become a Better Listener
Following Chris Eubank Jr's recent loss to Liam Smith in January, Roy Jones, the Hall of Fame fighter and trainer of Eubank, believes the British middleweight may become a better listener. Eubank's knockout loss to Smith came as a shock to the boxing world, as he is known for his durability.
Jones, who has trained Eubank for his last several fights, has suggested that Eubank's unwillingness to concede body shots in order to preserve his head might have led to his downfall. According to Jones, Eubank would rather take a punch to the head than one to the body, and that kind of thinking was what led to the disastrous result in Manchester.
Jones has been trying to teach Eubank that sometimes taking a body shot can be the better option, but Eubank had expressed a preference for taking head shots instead. However, Jones believes that the loss to Smith might make Eubank more receptive to his training advice.
"I know he never been hurt or ever been down before, but I felt he got an elbow before he got caught but still the elbow was to the head," Jones said on The DAZN Boxing Show. "And you never know what happens when you get hit in your head a certain way. And that’s really what I was trying to tell him. Why you gonna give a body shot up as opposed to a head shot? A head shot can cause damage. And you don’t know until after it happens. So if you take the body shot, you don’t take that risk. But he had never been hurt before so he didn’t understand that."
Eubank has activated his rematch clause with Smith, but the two have not yet finalized a deal. Eubank has also been rumored to be considering a fight with Conor Benn in a middleweight bout on June 3 in Abu Dhabi. Eubank and Benn were meant to face each other in a 157-pound catchweight bout last year that capitalized on their fathers' rivalry in the 1990s. However, a few days before the fight, Benn was revealed to have failed a performance-enhancing drug test.