By Scott Gilfoid: Newly crowned WBO light middleweight champion Liam Smith (21-0-1, 11 KOs) doesn’t know who he’ll be facing next after his 7th round knockout win over #5 WBO John Thompson (17-2, 6 KOs) last Saturday night at the Manchester Arena, in Manchester, UK.

For some reason, Smith, 27, is interested in fighting the 44-year-old Shane Mosley. Why Smith wants to fight Mosley rather than some of the younger and arguably more talented fighters like Vanes Martirosyan, Austin Trout, Demetrius Andrade, or Michel Soro is anyone’s guess.

It was bad enough that Smith fought Thompson for the vacant WBO 154lb title rather than Smith fighting Trout, Andrade, Soro or Martirosyan. I don’t understand how or why the World Boxing Organization let Smith fight Thompson, because I felt that guy should have never been given a No.5 ranking with the WBO. Thompson hadn’t done anything to deserve that ranking other than beating Brandon Adams on ESPN2 in the Boxcino tournament.

“I see Shane Mosley calling out Cornelius Bundrage last week and he doesn’t even have a world title,” Smith said. “I have the world title now, so Shane Mosley should be calling me out. These are massive fights and massive names. People chase world titles and I have one so they’ve got to chase me now. I’m excited to see what names I get offered now.”

So fighting 44-year-old Mosley is a “massive fight”? I think Smith is kidding himself if he thinks that a fight between him and Mosley would be a big fight. First off, I don’t see Mosley choosing to fight Smith because he’s coming back for big names, and he wants to fight at 147, not 154.

The WBO junior middleweight title would mean nothing for Mosley because there would be no one for him to fight in the division other than Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who won’t waste his time fighting him.

Canelo isn’t going to fight Mosley a second time because he already beat the stuffing out of him in the past. Mosley is not going to bother fighting Liam Smith, so he needs to get that through his head right now. Mosley isn’t mentioning Smith’s name because it’s a dead end fight.

The boxing fans in the United States don’t have clue one who Smith is, so it’s a situation that does nothing for Mosley. The aging Mosley wants to get a world title fight at 147, and he wants a big fight in that division. You can’t call a Mosley-Smith fight a big fight in the U.S. It’s more like an off TV type of fight that no one would care about.

“I don’t really care where I defend my title but I have fulfilled one dream and now another dream is to win a world title in America,” Smith said. “I would love to defend it back home too; I’m defending a world title wherever and that’s just amazing.”

I hate to rain on Smith’s parade, but his vision thing about him winning a world title in the United States isn’t going to happen right now. Smith is not going to beat the other junior middleweight champions Erislandy Lara, Jermall Charlo or Floyd Mayweather Jr. Lara and Charlo are really talented fighters, and they would do a number on Smith.

Mayweather is retired at the moment, but when he does come back to resume his career, he sure as heck won’t be bothering to face Smith. If Smith badly wants a fight against Lara or Charlo in a unification fight, then he can certainly face one of those guys, but I see him losing to both of them and losing badly.

Smith shouldn’t get things twisted. Beating a limited fighter like Thompson doesn’t mean that he’s going to be able to beat the talented fighters like Lara or Charlo. I think Demetrius Andrade, the former WBO 154lb champ, would totally destroy Smith and make it look easy.

If Smith is smart, he’ll keep away from Andrade, the Charlo brothers, Austin Trout, Lara and Vanes Martirosyan. I see those guys as much too good for Smith to handle. Smith would be better off milking his WBO title for as long as possible by facing some bottom feeders for his next two fights.