Stephen Smith comes up empty against Jose Pedraza

By Boxing News - 04/18/2016 - Comments

1-LR_FIGHT NIGHT-PEDRAZA VS SMITH-04162016-2054By Scott Gilfoid: After toiling away at his craft for the past eight years, #1 IBF Stephen Smith (23-2, 13 KOs) finally got a world title shot last Saturday night against unbeaten IBF super featherweight champion Jose Pedraza (22-0, 12 KOs) but it wasn’t to be for the 30-year-old Smith, as he was knocked down and beaten by a 12 round unanimous decision at the Foxwoods Resort, in Mashantucket, Connecticut, USA.

There were some of Smith’s fans who were hoping that he would be the UK’s 13th world champ, but it failed to happen. Smith couldn’t handle the talented 26-year-old Pedraza’s hard jab in the fight.

When Smith did start to make some headway finally against a tiring Pedraza in the last quarter of the fight, Smith was dropped by a right to the head in the 9th. That knockdown seemed to cause Smith to come unglued because his confidence seemed to disappear from that point on. Pedraza kicked his game into a higher gear and just ran away with the fight in the last three rounds.

It wasn’t all bad for Smith. At least he can say he went the full 12 round distance with Pedraza, and he got a chance to be seen by a large audience of American fans watching the fight on Showtime Championship Boxing. If Smith ever decides to try and build a large U.S fan base by fighting regularly in that huge country, he’ll at least have a head start.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. Smith needs to learn that he’s got to fight harder in the early rounds, and learn how to move his head. He was coming forward in straight lines all night long without using any head movement whatsoever. This made it easy for Pedraza to nail him with stiff jabs as he would come forward.

Smith would have been better off bum rushing Pedraza rather than slowly plodding forward because it at least would have given him a chance to avoid getting hit with those vicious jabs in every round of the fight. It’s hard to believe that Smith’s trainer hasn’t taught him how to move his head and move his feet a lot quicker. It sounds to me like Smith needs to get a new trainer because he should have been taught properly from the get go rather than hitting the ripe age of 30 and being found out by one of the world champions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXujbBAZpQg

The judges scored the fight 117-110, 116-111, and 116-111. I agree with the scoring of the fight. It was a clear win for Pedraza. Smith just had too many flaws in his game that Pedraza was able to take advantage in the fight.

The 5’6 ½” Smith looked too short and too light to beat the 5’8 ½” Pedraza. In Smith’s previous bout against the diminutive 5’5 ½” Devis Boschiero, Smith looked both taller and heavier than the Italian fighter by a big margin. But last night, Smith was just too small to compete against the muich bigger Pedraza and that was the major reason I had Smith losing the fight besides the fact that he failed to move his head.