Roy Jones Jr was replaced with Brian McIntyre as Chris Eubank Jr’s trainer because of his refusal to prioritise the middleweight over his other fighters.
The 33-year-old Eubank Jr had started preparing for Saturday’s fight with Liam Smith under the guidance of Jones Jr and David Haye, but endured first a postponement and then Smith’s withdrawal through injury.
Their rematch was finally rearranged but “Bomac” McIntyre, also the trainer of the great Terence Crawford, instead oversaw Eubank Jr’s final preparations and will also work his corner at the Manchester Arena,
“I was there with him; the fight kept getting moved; kept getting moved,” Jones Jr told ProBox TV. “Then he said, ‘Okay well, I’ll go back and I’ll call you when the fight happens’. I’d like to keep working with him but he gotta pay me to keep working with him. So I said, ‘I got other fighters I gotta train; other fighters with fights so I gotta go back and deal with them. I ain’t gonna be able to just sit and wait on you when I got other guys to get on’. I had three guys who had fights in the books so I couldn’t do it.
“He could train ‘Bud’ Crawford so why can’t he train Eubank? Bomac seems to be doing a good job with Bud, so why can’t he help Eubank?
“[Eubank Jr] can be one of the best if he stick to it and keep learning, but I don’t know. I don’t know. If he keep learning he can be one of the best still. He’s got the heart and he’s got the engine.He can win [the rematch].”
Before Jones Jr, Nate Vazquez, Adam Booth and Ronnie Davies were among Eubank Jr’s previous trainers, and yet for all of their expertise there have been suggestions he can be difficult to work with. Smith, 35, is by comparison not only settled with but thriving under Joe McNally,
Asked if he believes Eubank Jr listened to him, Jones Jr responded: “In the beginning he did, but as time went on he had more and more to say.
“When we started camp this time he was listening, so I didn’t have a problem with him listening. But before the last fight, the Liam Smith fight, he did start having questions, so that could be said he’s not listening because, you questioning your coach, you not in a good place.”
