(Photo credit: Marc Abrams) By Scott Gilfoid: The big punching #5 WBO John “Apollo Kidd” Thompson (17-1, 6 KOs) has arrived in the UK and is getting ready for his fight against unbeaten #3 WBO Liam “Beefy” Smith (20-0-1, 10 KOs) in nine days from now on October 10th in their battle for the vacant WBO junior middleweight title at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK.
The Thompson vs. Smith fight will be on the undercard of the clash between WBO World lightweight champion Terry Flanagan and Diego Magdaleno.
The 26-year-old Thompson is really looking forward to getting inside of the ring, beating the 27-year-old Smith in front of his own fans, and exiting the Manchester Arena with the WBO 154lb title in his possession as he flies back to the United States back to his hometown of beautiful Newark, New Jersey.
“I am glad to be here, but I have a job to do and on October 10. That night I will become world champion,” Smith said.
It’s going to be awfully hard for the slower, shorter, weaker, and arguably less talented Smith to be able to turn back Thompson from him fulfilling his destiny by winning the WBO junior middleweight title. The 5’9 ½” Smith will be giving up 3 ½” inches in height to the 6’1” Thompson, and a great deal more in terms of hand speed.
The lack of hand speed is going to be a big problem for Smith in this fight because Thompson has the ability to throw blinding combinations that are almost impossible to stop due to the speed. If you watch how Thompson obliterated a very good fighter in Brandon Adams in his 2nd round knockout win last May, it’s just remarkable to see how many punches Thompson landed within a wink of an eye in the 2nd round. Adams isn’t a pushover by any means.
Indeed, I would favor Adams over Smith by an easy knockout if the two of them were to ever face each other, which is why it was so impressive to see Thompson obliterate Adams to capture ESPN’s 2015 Boxcino Tournament for the junior middleweight division. It was no small accomplishment for Thompson to win the Boxcino tournament because the tournament had some real talents at 154.
Smith will have the crowd in his favor on October 10th, as the fight will be in his home country, but you can expect Thompson to look to take the crowd out of the fight immediately by giving Smith a boxing lesson early on. Thompson will be looking to keep Smith from getting any momentum in the fight, and this will make the crowd quiet I imagine. If the fans do continue to sing and chant while the fight takes place, I don’t expect that Thompson will pay any attention to it. Smith might. I’m sure he’ll be motivated to fight harder, but I think that will work against him because he’ll only walk into shots and possibly wind up getting knocked out rather than just being beaten by a decision. It’s up to Smith how he wants it to go. If he’s smart, he’ll play it safe and not fight out of control like he’s lost his senses. This is the wrong fighter to be fighting to try and get brave in there with him.
Other fights on the Flanagan-Magdaleno card are as follows:
Jack Catterall vs. Jarkko Putkonen
Luke Blackledge vs. Lee Markham
Thomas Stalker vs. Craig Evans
Comments are closed.