By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten #1 WBC super middleweight contender Callum Smith (20-0, 15 KOs) will be fighting little known Hungarian Norbert Nemesapati (21-3, 16 KOs) in a scheduled 12 round bout on the undercard of the Gennady “GGG” Golovkin vs. Kell Brook card on September 10 at the O2 Arena in London, England. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of the 21-year-old Nemesapati before.
I did notice that he’s coming off of a loss to someone named Umar Salamov last August. That’s not good. I mean, how do you get motivated to see Callum Smith fight an unknown guy that lost his last fight to another unknown fighter? I’m just saying. What’s the point of even having Callum on the Golovkin-Brook undercard if he’s not going to be fighting someone good? But then again, Smith’s resume is littered with unknown guys like Nemesapati, so it’s not all that surprising that he’s STILL fighting lesser fighters at this point in his career.
You can argue that Nemesapati is probably a better fighter than Smith’s last opponent Cesar Hernan Reynoso (14-8-3, 7 KOs), who he struggled to beat last May at Goodison Park in Liverpool, UK. Smith did not look good in that fight for an instant.
The 26-year-old Callum needs to be fighting better opposition at this point. He’s the mandatory challenger for World Boxing Council 168lb champion Badou Jack. It’s time that Smith take the training wheels off at this point in his career and start fighting some guys that will at least get him partially ready for the Badou fight. It’s no use fighting if all Callum is going to be doing is fighting fodder opposition that he can absolutely cream each time he fights.
Smith’s old brother, 33-year-old Paul Smith (37-6, 21 KOs) will be fighting on the Golovkin-Brook card too in a six-round fight against an opponent still to be determined.
“Callum Smith has one more hurdle before the mandatory against WBC champ Badou Jack is called on September 13 and we are looking for him to make a statement on this huge platform,” said Hearn to skysports.com. “Gavin McDonnell is sitting pretty for a shot at the world title later this year and Paul Smith is also in the hunt with one eye on the winner of the rematch between Giovanni De Carolis and Tyron Zeuge for the WBA strap.”
Paul Smith wants to fight the winner of the November 5 fight between WBA World 168lb champion Giovanni De Carolis and Tyron Zeuge? How in the heck does Smith get a title shot against the winner of that fight when he’s not even ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies at super middleweight? Smith has lost three out of his last five fights since 2014. How in the world does Smith rate yet another world title shot?
Smith was beaten twice by former WBO World super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham in losses in 2014-15. Smith belly ached about having been robbed after his first fight against Abraham in September 2014, so he was given a rematch in June 2015, which I don’t feel he deserved for a second. Abraham then promptly beat Smith for a second time to quiet him down. I mean, Smith couldn’t say anything after the second loss because it was even more one-sided than the first fight between them. Smith then was knocked out in the 9th round by a past his best Andre Ward last year in June. Smith looked flabby, terrible, and didn’t fight hard. Since then, Smith have come back to defeat little known fighters Bronislav Kubin (19-21-2, 12 KOs) and Bartlomiej Grafka (18-22-3, 9 KOs) in his last two fights. Those sure are nice records those fighters have. I can only imagine what kind of opponent will be put in the ring with Paul Smith for the Golovkin vs. Brook card on September 10. It’s obviously not going to be someone good, One indication that you can get for the kind of opponent that Smith will be fighting is the fact that he’s scheduled already to fight on October 15 on the Tony Bellew vs. BJ Flores card at the Echo Arena in Liverpool. There’s no way that Smith would be scheduled for that card if he was fighting a live body on September 10. As such, we’re likely to see Smith fighting another journeyman level fighter. It’s going to be interesting to see if Smith’s fight makes it onto the Sky Box Office pay-per-view broadcast or not. I hope for the paying boxing fans that it doesn’t, because the fans need to see competitive matches, not mismatches.
Other fights on the Golovkin-Brook card are as follows:
Lee Haskins vs. Stuart Hall
Martin Ward vs. Andy Townend
John Riel Casimero vs. Charlie Edwards
Kid Galahad vs. Emiliano Salvini
Conor Benn vs. Silvije Kebet