Chris Eubank Jr. may not necessarily have the skillset to keep up with the likes of Gennadiy Golovkin or Canelo Alvarez, but according to his trainer, Roy Jones Jr., it is his natural explosiveness that makes him a bonafide threat to upset any of the top names between 160 and 168 pounds. 

And who better than Jones, perhaps the fighter with the most gifted fast-twitch muscles to grace the sport in the past 50 years, to understand the value of being more explosive in the ring than your opponent? 

“I know that [Eubank] can fight with anybody,” Jones told Brian Custer on the Last Stand Podcast. “Matter of fact we really want an opportunity to fight Canelo. I know he’s a little bit smaller but because of his explosiveness I’m not worried. I was smaller than [heavyweight] John Ruiz but because of my explosiveness I know it made up for it. 

Jones certainly has a point there. A career middleweight and super middleweight, Jones shocked the boxing world in 2003 by deciding to face then WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz. He shocked it again by thoroughly dominating Ruiz over 12 rounds, largely thanks to his superior athleticism – that is to say, his explosiveness. 

“I know that Chris Eubank can fight anybody that he wants because of his explosiveness, but we do have to teach him more about down time,” said Jones, who started working with Eubank last year. “But right now we want [Gennadiy] ‘Triple G’ [Golovkin] but we’ll take Canelo, too, because it’s a great fight for us. The explosiveness is what gave me the edge in my own career. He’s highly explosive and he’s with a guy that knows about being explosive.” 

Call it a match made in fast-twitch heaven. 

In his first fight under Jones’ stewardship this past May, Eubank (30-2, 22 KOs) notched a unanimous decision over Marcus Morrison on the Dereck Chisora-Joseph Parker undercard in Manchester. Eubank, who is notorious for changing trainers throughout his career, has stated repeatedly that he has found some semblance of stability with Jones, claiming at one point that working with the Hall of Famer would “add years to my career.” 

As for Jones, he can’t stop raving about his protégé’s bloodcurdling power. 

"He is so much like his father [former two-division world champion Chris Eubank] it’s unbelievable,” Jones continued. “This kid is one of the most explosive fighters on the planet. The problem I have with him and that other people have had in the past is that he’s too explosive. If he can calm some of that explosiveness down and teach him to do a little bit more boxing which he showed in his last fight he can be something fun to watch because when he turns it on he turns it on. You really have to be able to withstand some stuff to be able to weather that storm."