Liam Smith has claimed he may only be at 50 per cent when he rematches Chris Eubank Jr this summer.
Smith produced a scintillating display to stop his rival in the fourth round of their grudge match earlier this year. Now after a period of deliberation from his conquered opponent, the pair will meet again on June 17 at the Manchester Arena after Eubank Jr confirmed he had activated his rematch clause.
It was an extremely heated build-up to their first fiery encounter in the ring, with Eubank Jr regularly suggesting he would only need to be at 50 per cent to win the showdown. After Smith won himself in emphatic fashion, he has suggested it was used as a tactic to sell the fight.
"I might give Chris 50 per cent this time," he joked with reporters when asked about the build-up to his initial clash with Eubank Jr. "We'll see how my camp goes. No, you pay attention to that you're clueless, you're in the wrong sport. Do you firmly believe Chris was 50 per cent, I'll tell you now I can't make weight if I train 50 per cent. That's just, what would you call it?
"Not even bravado, just ego and selling the fight, being smart and trying to belittle me, that's all that was. That's why i trained the way I trained, all that was just an act. Do you think Roy Jones is coming here to train a 50 per cent condition fighter? That was just a tactic to belittle me.
"I think even before the fight he had seen an interview of me a long time before the fight was made saying 'there is not a chance he can beat me at 60 per cent'. So instead he turned up at the press conference and said he can beat me at 50 per cent. So it was just a clever move on his behalf rather than he actually meant anything by it."
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Eubank Jr had already made the joke that he was 60 per cent after facing a tough weight cut to reach 157lb for his original fight with Conor Benn. However the bout was cancelled despite the middleweight star having had a t-shirt printed in the build-up to mock his rival.
It was unclear if weight struggles had an impact on Eubank Jr in his devastating defeat by Smith earlier this year, but he will be forced to boil down once again. And the 34-year-old has insisted that his rival used the weight as an excuse even though he believes he was the better fighter.
He continued: "From a fighter's point of view, it was fabricated, he kidded the public. So the picture he put out for Conor Benn was at 159, it was the exact same weight for me. He didn't do the weight cut for Conor Benn, it was all a bluff. He was on the scales at 169, the same weight he fought at me - and the weight you will always be at if you're at a 160 limit.
"It got blown out of proportion. It's got nothing to do with me. No, he was tired because he's done two camps back to back, maybe. I'll accept that."
