By Scott Gilfoid: British super middleweight champion Paul Smith (29-1, 15 KO’s) will be defending his title against Paul David (12-5, 5 KO’s) on October 23rd, at the Arena, in Liverpool, England. Smith, 28, is making his 2nd defense of his British title against David, a fighter who is coming off of a loss to Patrick Mendy. What kind of title defense is that? That just shows you how weak the British super middleweight division is fro Smith to be taking on a fighter like David, who I see as B level fighter. Why isn’t Smith stepping it up against George Groves or James DeGale already? Whatever the case, DeGale is waiting for him and will probably be Smith’s next opponent in December.

I think Smith is going to get taken apart by DeGale, and I can’t see that fight as being even slightly competitive. Smith looked horrible in his resent 12 round decision over Tony Dodson in March of this year. It seemed like Smith was uncoordinated or something he missed almost every punch he threw and would always fall into a clinch with Dodson. Smith looked worse than sloppy in that fight. It was like he had put on gloves for the first time and was trying to ape what a normal fighter would so. It was some really bad boxing, and if Dodson wasn’t so awful himself, he would have easily won the fight. There were times in that fight that I wondered how Smith had ever won the British title in the first place. I could picture at 40 super middleweights at the top of my head that I think would have made easy work with Smith on that night in the Dodson fight. He looked so average it wasn’t even funny.

But Smith should beat David without any problems. I’ve seen a couple of David’s fights and I never saw the guy as someone that would ever challenge for a title given how mediocre he looked against Tyrone Wright, Tony Salem and Jeff Evans. I see David as a good fodder opponent for Smith to get one last hurrah’s before he’s beaten by DeGale. Smith will hang around and likely win back to British title after DeGale moves on to bigger and better things on the world scene. Smith is a survivor and he’ll hanging around for awhile and everyone once in awhile take a beating by one of the young talents.