(Callum Smith seen here with a 1000 yard stare ahead of his difficult match-up tonight against Rocky Fielding in Liverpool) By Scott Gilfoid: Tonight the super middleweight division will be weeded out a little when the highly hyped #1 WBC, #10 IBF, #13 WBO, #14 WBA Callum Smith (17-0, 12 KOs) faces #5 IBF, #10 WBA, #10 WBC, #12 WBO Rocky Fielding (21-0, 12 KOs) in a scrap for the vacant British 168lb title at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK.
The winner of the fight will be in position to get world title shot against the tough as nails WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack for either 2016 or 2017. The loser of the Smith-Fielding contest will need to go back to the drawing board and attempt to rebuild their shattered careers.
I can see this fight winding up as a huge mismatch that ends early with Smith getting blasted out before he even knows what hits him. When I look at Smith, 25, I see his flawed brother Paul Smith just waiting to be exposed to the light of day.
Thus far, we haven’t seen Callum fail like Paul because he hasn’t faced anyone even remotely good, but tonight, I see him falling to pieces under the pressure from Fielding’s pressure and superior punching power. I do think it’s going to be a massacre with Callum being knocked down repeatedly over and over again until the referee does the only thing he can do in stopping the contest in order to keep the fight from looking like a circus act.
“I know Smith family well and they are all top lads,” Martin Murray said to skysports.com. “I’ll be ringside on the night and I will be nervous for Rocky, but I am confident he will do the job.”
I totally agree with Murray. I see Fielding because much too good for the likes of Smith, and I don’t see this fight going the distance. The inexperienced Smith needs a whole rework of his game plan for him to be ready for the top competition in my view. He’s not experienced and he fights like someone out of the 50s instead of like a top pro in the game today.
Like the tall stork-like Glberto Ramirez, who previously used to try and fight on the inside until he finally got a clue that he was going to go nowhere in boxing with that foolish fighting style, Smith is going to find out the hard way that he cannot be an inside fighter in this day and age. He’s going to take too much punishment tonight, and in the future once he starts facing the more talented super middleweight division. But tonight, Smith will get his first dose of reality that he’s using the wrong fighting style for the 21st century.
“I believe Callum will go out there and prove he is leagues and levels above him [Fielding,” Scott Quigg said to skysports.com. “I see Callum stopping him between the sixth and eighth rounds.”
I hate to say it, but that’s not going to happen. It sounds more like wishful thinking on Quigg’s part in him predicting a Smith stoppage win. I mean, if this was Smith fighting some of his old over-matched opposition that he’s feasted on in the past, then, yeah, I could see him scoring a knockout tonight. If Smith were fighting the likes of Olegs Fedotovs (19-21), Rafael Sosa Pintos (48-10), Francois Bastient (43-10) or Ruslans Pojonisevs (14-26), he’d definitely be getting a knockout. Sadly, those are fighters that Smith has beaten in the past.
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In other action in tonight’s fight card, former two division world champion Ricky Burns (38-5-1, 12 KOs) will be looking to pad his record in facing #10 WBO Josh King (20-3, 9 KOs) in what shapes up to be a nice little mismatch for the WBO Inter-Continental lightweight title. In fighting for that lower level trinket, Burns, 32, is being positioned to get a top 15 ranking with the World Boxing Organization so that he can get a world title shot against WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan in the very near future. I have no doubts that Burns will beat King and get his world title shot against Flanagan, but I don’t think Burns will do well at all. Flanagan is just too good and Burns is just too shot at this point in his career in my view.
“I belong in the big fights and that’s what I want to prove on Saturday,” Burns said to the dailyrecord.co.uk. “I would like to go back to Scotland but it would have to be for a big fight. We are building towards that now with the fight with Josh. We’re looking to get back to winning my old world title.”
I think Burns is deluded when he says he belongs in big fights. I mean, if he would stop losing all the time, I would I agree with him that he deserves to be in big fights, but he doesn’t belong other than making it easy for the world champions to get victories.
Burns will obviously win tonight, but so what. It’s not as if he’s fighting anyone good. Once he starts facing quality opposition again, I see him continuing to lose over and over again.
Other fights on tonight’s Smith-Fielding card:
Scott Cardle vs. Sean Dodd
Tom Doran vs. Rod Smith
Ohara Davies vs. Chris Truman
Jake Ball vs. Mehdi Lacombe
Marc Leach vs. Ian Halsall
Warren Baister vs. Attila Gyen
Ryan Mulcahy vs. Ross Roberts
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