Middleweight contender Chris Eubank Jr (34-3, 24 KOs) cleared the trail to a high-profile bout in opposition to fellow Brit Nigel Benn with a seventh-round knockout of Poland’s Kamil Szeremeta (25-3-2, 8 KOs) at Kingdom Area in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday evening.
Szeremeta was down 4 instances within the bout.
Boxing on the undercard of the undisputed gentle heavyweight title struggle between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol, the 35-year-old Eubank Jr proved a category above at each stage of the struggle.
Eubank Jr had early success, utilizing his explosive energy to attach with energy photographs. A chopping proper hand from Eubank Jr despatched Szeremeta down within the opening spherical, however Szeremeta retaliated with a proper hand of his personal late within the stanza that despatched Eubank Jr backwards.
The second spherical noticed Eubank Jr land a flashy proper uppercut, left uppercut mixture from vary. Within the third Eubank Jr suffered a small lower over his from an unintentional conflict of heads.
The fourth and fifth had been scrappy rounds, however Eubank Jr continued to get the higher of the motion.
Eubank Jr lifted within the sixth. A proper hand to the physique adopted by a proper to the pinnacle despatched Szeremeta to the canvas for the second time within the bout. Szeremeta, who was reportedly contemplating retirement earlier than taking the bout, survived the spherical, however the writing was on the wall.
Eubank Jr began the seventh with function. He pressured Szeremeta, mixing up his photographs to the physique and head. A proper uppercut to the photo voltaic plexus took the wind out of Szeremeta’s sails and he dropped to the canvas. Szeremeta beat the rely, however a cheeky left rip to the identical spot despatched him down once more.
Szeremeta bravely made it to his toes, however the referee determined he had seen sufficient and correctly waved off the one-sided contest. The official time of the stoppage was 1:50.
As dominant because the struggle was, Eubank Jr was in cruise management at instances.
“I used to be having enjoyable in there,” mentioned The Ring’s No.5 ranked contender after the struggle. “To be sincere, I assumed I might end the struggle within the first spherical… I had enjoyable in there, I labored on issues. I’m trying ahead to the large struggle that’s arising subsequent.”
In scenes harking back to the WWE, home rival Benn, who containers at welterweight, rushed the ring after the struggle to actually butt heads with Eubank Jr and problem a problem after tweeting from ringside: “I promise you I’ll chin this fool inside 3 rounds.”
It was nice theater, but when the bout is to happen on dwelling soil, the 28-year-old Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) might want to get clearance to field after being stripped of his license by the British Boxing Board of Management following a failed medicine take a look at that derailed the Eubank Jr two years in the past.
