Carl Froch and Chris Eubank Sr are both very proud men known for their fighting toughness, but both admit one man would have got the better of them in the ring.
Froch and Eubank Sr both held multiple super-middleweight world titles, with Sr also claiming straps down at middleweight. Froch was never stopped in his career and was only put down a couple of times – once against George Groves and once against Jermain Taylor, but rallied both times to win by stoppage. He lost only two of his 35 fights and shied away from no one during his career.
However, he recently admitted to Pro Box TV that had he fought multi-weight world champion Roy Jones Jr, he thinks he would have lost.
“He hits ya. I can’t say he wouldn’t have hit me, because I get hit with shots. If I’d have got my guard up, he’d have brought that guard down. He’d have been too quick with that jab and he’d have just out-worked me, with speed. [Jones would] have hammered me. You asked me what would have happened — he’d have beaten me up. That’s what would have happened.”
Before he retired in 1998, Eubank took five losses in his career but all came on the cards – two against Steve Collins, two against Carl Thompson, and one against Joe Calzaghe. He, too, admitted to Sky Sports Boxing that there was one man you ‘can’t beat’ and it was Jones Jr.
“If that fight had have happened, we both would have been hurt because I would have to go to war with you to win. You can’t beat guys like this in his time, all respect [to Joe Calzaghe], Suicide… Why would I want to fight a guy like Roy Jones in his prime?”
Roy Jones is considered one of the greatest boxers of all time. He won titles from middleweight all the way up to heavyweight and later went on to train Sr’s son, Chris Eubank Jr, who fights Conor Benn to continue a generational rivalry this weekend.
