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Mike Coppinger, ESPN
Liam Smith suffered an injury in training camp and his June 17 middleweight rematch vs. Chris Eubank Jr. in Manchester, England, has been postponed, sources told ESPN.
The injury is minor, sources said, and the fight could be rescheduled as soon as July 1.
Smith (33-3-1, 20 KOs) scored the upset win over Eubank when they fought in January, a fourth-round TKO that included two knockdowns. One month later, Eubank tweeted that he exercised his contractual right to an immediate rematch.
However, there remained doubt the return bout would take place next. Eubank reengaged in talks with Conor Benn — they were set to fight in October before a banned substance was found in Benn’s system; the WBC later cleared Benn of intentional doping — but ultimately pushed forward with his opportunity for revenge.
“It all happened to him on one night. Everything he thought couldn’t happen to him, everything Chris prides himself on not happening, happened to him on one night — and I did it to him,” Smith, 34, said last month.
“I knew I was a better fighter than Chris. Now I know I can hurt him and hurt him quite handily at 160 pounds. Now I’m massively confident. … To save face he had to take this rematch if he wants to go any further in his career. He’s got a lot of demons to overcome.”
Smith, a 2-1 underdog, pinned Eubank in the corner and dropped him with a flurry of punches. When he beat the count, he was on unsteady legs. Moments later, Eubank was on the canvas again, and this time, the referee halted the fight without a count.
“I wanted to continue,” Eubank said. “I wanted to see if I could overcome that adversity, and I feel like I was robbed of that challenge. This is what we sign up for. We signed up to get hurt. We sign up for the possibility of receiving punishment.
“If a beating was what I was going to take if the fight had been left to go longer, then great, that’s what I deserve. I would have accepted that. I would have enjoyed that. In my opinion, he didn’t stop me — the referee stopped me. In a sense, we both got robbed there.”
Smith, who fights out of Liverpool, is a former junior middleweight titleholder who lost his belt to Canelo Alvarez via ninth-round KO in September 2016. “Beefy” moved up to middleweight for the Eubank assignment and is now rated No. 5 at 160 pounds by ESPN.
Smith scored a 10th-round TKO of former champion Jessie Vargas in his previous outing. His younger brother, Callum Smith, is a light heavyweight contender who also lost his title (at super middleweight) to Alvarez.
Eubank (32-3, 23 KOs) is the son of British legend Chris Eubank Sr. The 33-year-old’s other two losses came against Billy Joe Saunders (before BJS won his first title) and George Groves in a super middleweight title bout. Eubank is rated No. 9 by ESPN at middleweight.