By Edward Chaykovsky

Middleweight contender Chris Eubank Jr. (23-1, 18KOs) is very motivated to become world champion when he faces Renold Quinlan (11-1, 7KOs) for the IBO super middleweight title on February 4th at the Olympic Velodrome in Stratford.

It's a strange career move, because Eubank Jr. had been hunting for a major fight in the middleweight limit and now moves up to fight someone at 168-pounds - and admits he will likely come back down in weight for more opportunities at 160-pounds.

Quinlan is coming off a big upset win from October, when he knocked out former world champion Daniel Geale.

Eubank Jr. believes a win over Quinlan will be huge for the British boxing scene.

"It’s not middleweight but it’s a world title. It's a huge thing to bring that title back to England. People are gonna want to see that. This guy’s game, he’s ready to come over and defend his title in a foreign country against one of the best fighters in the world. That says a lot about that man and I respect that. I believe it’s gonna be a helluva fight," Eubank Jr. said. to IFL TV.

“He knocked out Daniel Geale in his last performance so he’s not playing around. He’s got the world title and he’s not just gonna come over here and give it up. Any world champion wants to keep his world title belt - unless you’re Canelo Alvarez, who doesn’t want to fight Golovkin..... then you give it up. But this guy is coming over here to defend his title with everything he’s got."

There have been some critics who attacked the fight - claiming the IBO title was not legitimate - and Eubank Jr. lashed out at them.

"I like giving it back a little bit to my army of haters that like to get on me about pretty much everything I do - and I shut quite a few people up. Obviously you got the people who keep at it but you can’t deny when you see pictures of Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, Golovkin - all holding this belt I’m going to be fighting for. What can you tell me? You can’t tell me anything. So that’s why I did it,” Eubank Jr. said.