WITH their fight set for December 11 at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff on Sky Sports, Chris Eubank Junior went head-to-head with Liam Williams at an announcement press conference in London on Wednesday.
The two had traded barbs on social media but struck a more moderate tone at today’s press conference, leaving Eubank unimpressed. “He’s a turncoat, a keyboard warrior. He has huge thumbs, that’s what he has. I said he has got a big mouth but he just has big thumbs. He’s had nothing to say for himself today. He came up here talking about respect. How can he go from the things he’s said on Twitter to talking about respect, it’s embarrassing. Shameful. I wasn’t surprised. I said coming up here he was going to bottle it and he is a bottlejob. He knows what is coming and he knows he’s talked himself into a position he can’t get out of. Now he is going to pay for what he said,” Eubank said afterwards. “Am I disappointed he didn’t say more? I’m not going to say that because do I want someone standing there talking s**t at me? No, not really. I understand it’s a good way to build a fight so I’m disappointed for the fans and not for myself. It’s happened before with Spike O’Sullivan. He did the same thing, huge talker online but when it came to it there was zero spice.”
“I’m not concerned,” Eubank added, “I’m concerned for him. He’s put me in a mindset that this is a personal situation, it’s only going to be bad for him. I’m still a professional, I still know what I have to do and how I need to do it and not let emotions get the better of me. But, you know, there will be extra spite in my punches on the night. Most of the time it isn’t personal, most of the time it is business but when you attack someone the way you’ve attacked me, talked about me the way he has, then it can’t be anything other than personal. He’s dug his grave and now he’s going to lie in it.”
Eubank welcomes travelling to Wales, Williams’ homeland for this fight. “Let’s do it. If he needs home advantage, if he needs the crowd to help him muster up the courage to get him in the ring with me then give it to him,” he said.
He promises to be unfazed. “It’s just something I was born with. I’ve been a target of hostility and disrespect and pressure and all these things from day one. From my first fight at 21, 22 in the pros and even when I fought as an amateur. I just built up a tolerance for bulls**t, for hostility, for being the bad guy and the underdog and everyone doubting me, I’ve built up a tolerance for that,” he said. “Now going into the ‘Dragon’s Den’ or whatever they’re calling it is not an issue. I’ve been there before, I’ve done it and I’ll do it again. It’s not from my dad, it’s from the things I’ve had to deal with in my own career.”
He knows though that Williams is a real contest and a real threat. “It’s a genuine fight,” he says, “a genuine domestic rivalry. He has will, desire and determination. But all those things will get him hurt.”
Eubank’s ambitions do extend further still. He wants that Gennady Golovkin fight. “I would love the winner of that [Golovkin vs Ryota Murata] fight. I’m ranked with the WBA, I was interim world champion, their belt is on the line in that fight, I should be next up, why not? How can that not be the next fight?” he said.
He wants to bring the Kazakh back to the UK too: “Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t it be great to get that fight at the Amex in Brighton? That’s what dreams are made of.”