By William Mackay: Super middleweight Paul Smith (28-1, 15 KO’s) won a controversial 12 round split decision last night over champion Tony Quigley (13-2, 6 KO’s) to capture the BBBofC British super middleweight title at the Echo Arena, Liverpool, Merseyside. The final judges’ scores were 114-116 for Quigley and 116-113 and 116-112 for Smith. I personally had Quigley winning 117-111.

The fight was hard to score as both fighters did little more than clinch and miss all night long, looking more like two drunks than two professional boxers. Smith, 27, who unusually puts in a good performance, looked cautious and afraid to let his hands go through most of the fight. Other than a small handful of punches that Smith landed in the first round, he did next to nothing for the next nine rounds until finally showing some aggression and fighting hard in the 11th and 12th to make the fight a little closer.

However, it wasn’t nearly enough for Smith to win the fight on my scorecard nor on one of the judges card. It’s hard to imagine what fight the other two judges were watching because there’s no way that Smith could have been in control of the fight by the scores of 116-113 and 116-112.

I could see that if Smith was actually throwing and landing punches in every round but he did little in the fight from the 2nd round until the 11th when he finally started throwing punches. In the last two rounds, Quigley, 25, tired badly and looked really sloppy as he wrestled constantly and missed with wild shots. Smith did only a fraction better, as he missed with the vast majority of his punches in the final two rounds and looked exhausted.

However, you had to give the last two rounds to Smith because he was the one making the fight during those two final rounds. I wish I could say the same thing for the earlier rounds, through, because Smith did next to nothing and was really stinking up the joint with his lack of offense.

Quigley did basically all the punching and landing in rounds two through six, hitting Smith with short combinations and doing an effective job of smothering him. Quigley stayed close to Smith, grabbing him after landing short punches on the inside. Smith was basically helpless to do anything. He didn’t have the inside fighting ability of a Carl Froch and was unable to match Quigley on the inside.

On the outside, Smith was too slow in letting his hands go and was beaten to the punch all night long by Quigley. Smith was cut over the right eye in the later rounds from a head butt. The cut bled a lot during the final three rounds of the fight.

Quigley stalked Smith around the ring from the 7th until the tiring in the 11th. However, even in the 11th round, it was Quigley who was pressing forward and trying to take the advantage. I still gave the 11th round to Smith because he landed the harder shots but it was very close.

It was not an impressive performance from either fighter, especially from Smith. Promoter Frank Warren said immediately after the fight that there would be a rematch. Many of the crowd hated the decision, booing loudly. I can’t blame them because I had Quigley easily winning the fight.