Chris Eubank Jnr’s promoter, Ben Shalom, has attempted to clear up any confusion surrounding a potential fight with Mexican superstar, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
Three weeks ago, Eubank Jnr, 34-3 (25 KOs), stopped Kamil Szeremeta in Saudi Arabia and speculation about his next opponent started almost immediately.
Last week, Shalom told Sky Sports: “We’ve already started small conversations around the Canelo fight.”
Within days, the super middleweight champion’s manager and trainer, Eddie Reynoso, made his position clear on a fight between his charge and Eubank Jnr clear.
Referencing the breakdown in negotiations which scuppered a potential September fight between the two, Reynoso left little room for confusion.
“It’s totally false,” he told Dan Rafael’s Fight Freaks unite. “We will not touch base with him again for a future fight! Whatever I tell you is always true!”
Shalom was at the WBO convention in Puerto Rico when he heard about Reynoso’s comments. Rather than entering into a ‘he said, she said’ situation, Shalom believes that the mixed messages are the result of a simple breakdown of communications on the Mexican great’s side.
“I had my mates messaging me. I was in Puerto Rico at the [WBO] convention and I’m looking through my phone going, ‘Am I going mad?’” Shalom told Sky Sports.
“I’ve obviously been talking to his lawyer, Greg Smith, who we’re always talking to about that fight and we’ve spoken since the Szeremeta fight so I think it’s perhaps a communication issue on their side.”
Eubank Jnr has been talking about major fights for some time now but, at 35 years old, he needs to make his move. Thankfully, it looks like 2025 will be the year the talking stops.
His long running, bitter rivalry with Conor Benn seems all but certain to come to a head over the next few months but a clash with
Canelo is the fight that every fighter campaigning between 160lbs and 175lbs dreams about.
Shalom is still positive that it will take place.
“For me, I still believe the fight can happen. I still believe the fight will happen. I don’t think it was ever gonna be next because Canelo traditionally fights in May and September and we want to see Chris out in February or March but, yeah, I was surprised to see that,” Shalom said.
“I think it’s a communication on their side because we’ve spoken and, as I said at the time, I saw it blow up as everything does with Canelo. We had small conversations and reached back out and that’s all it was.”
John Evans has contributed to a number of well-known publications and websites for over a decade. You can follow John on X @John_Evans79
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