In this video interview with Fight Hub TV, Chris Eubank Jr. goes in depth about his personal disdain for Billy Joe Saunders, calling him a lowlife cheat who he would like to get another shot at should the opportunity presents itself. Check out some excerpts below...
Eubank Jr. on his ongoing feud with Saunders:
“He’s a joke. He’s a drug cheat. He’s a bad person. Kids growing up in boxing who are looking up to the world champions, he’s not a role model. You would never want your kid looking at him and be ‘yeah, I want my son or my daughter to be that guy.’ He’s a joke.
“There are very few people that I dislike in boxing. I don’t dislike anyone, even like people I’ve fought. Him, I don’t like. He’s not a good guy, he’s a bad guy. Some people say I’m the bad guy, but he’s a real bad guy, outside of the ring. So obviously we’ve had the fight, a fight I feel I won. He got the decision, and since then people have been begging for a rematch. It hasn’t happened, his promoter Frank Warren, you know, he’s a snake. And, you know, you can’t deal with a snake unless you cut its head off.”
On Saunders actually just splitting with Frank Warren:
“Really? Ok well I didn’t know that but if that’s true then maybe the fight can be made easier now. Maybe it can be made. I don’t need him. The only reason he’s known is because of me. I’m the only fight that people care about him being in. There’s nobody else where people are saying ‘I wish to see somebody fight him.’ They wanna see me. Whereas I have so many options. I’ve had big money fights. He hasn’t fought for a lot of money, and he’s still looking for that big payday which is why he’s always talking about me because he knows I’m the money guy. Without me he’s just gonna get the regular paydays like he’s been for his entire career. He’s desperate, which is why he was cheating, which is why he was using performance enhancing drugs.”
On what he made of Saunder’s nasal spray excuse:
“Listen, there’s always an excuse whether it’s meat, whether it’s nasal spray or one of my friends who was jealous put something in my drink. It’s all bullshit. You’re a cheat. You got caught and the fact that he was then able to fight for a world title after like a couple months, six months, is crazy to me. But, you know, politics is a big thing in boxing and they found a way around it. He has a world title now so that is definitely a fight I would entertain in the future but I don’t need him, you know, I’ve moved on. But if it can happen, we’ll make it happen.”
On if he’s pissed off about Saunders:
“It’s not that he pisses me off, I’m not even gonna give him that, ‘cause he’s a joke to me. Anytime I see him doing something — there was this thing about him taking advantage of some vulnerable woman or something like that, and she was on drugs, and he made her punch somebody or something. It’s just so dumb, the stuff that he does, you know, he could never piss me off because I feel bad for the guy, ‘cause he’s that much of a lowlife, you know? I feel bad for him.
“But yeah, we have that rivalry, we have that history in terms of the fight we had. So in that sense I have to rectify, I have to get back in the ring with him and do what I know I can do. In that first fight, it was my first 12-round fight. Before then I think I had only ever fought like six, seven rounds. So I paced myself too early on in that fight. I didn’t know how I’d feel in the 9th and 10th and 11th and 12th, so I paced myself too much early on. And once I got to the 5th, 6th round I was like ‘this is it? I’m gonna tear this guy up. I can do this.’ And then I was on top of him for the rest of the fight, beating him up.
“But I lost the early rounds because of inactivity. Didn’t get hurt, didn’t get hit really that much, just not doing enough. And since then I’ve never made that same mistake. I’ve always started strong every fight since then. So if I can get a split decision with him in a fight where I only fought for half the fight, what am I gonna do to him when I start from Round 1? He knows, which is why the fight hasn’t been made yet. But eventually he’s gonna have to come out of hiding.”