By Scott Gilfoid: With his latest defeat the hands of Andre Ward sending him skittering to his third straight loss, 32-year-old former British super middleweight champion Paul Smith isn’t sure what he’s going to do with his sagging career. He says he hasn’t even thought about what he’s going to do next. But if Smith does choose to continue, it’s pretty much academic at this point that he won’t be getting another world title shot or another catch-weight fight against a world champion anytime soon, if ever.
Nothing has really changed in terms of Smith’s ability in the last three fights. He’s still the same fighter who fought WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham twice and lost both fights.
The only thing that’s changed is that Smith now has three additional losses on his resume, and that’s going to likely make it difficult for him to get another payday fight for a world title.
“I am not even thinking about it,” Smith said to skysports.com. “It’s nice that people keep asking me but I haven’t even come close to making a decision yet.”
I personally don’t see anything being really different for Smith after his losses to Abraham and Ward. The only difference is Smith is going to have to likely need to go back to getting the smaller money in fighting domestic level fighters once again instead of making the good money losing to Abraham and Ward.
It’s not as if Smith beat anyone good to earn the fights against Abraham and Ward. I mean, Smith beat some truly awful opposition in my view to get the world title fights against Abraham. If Smith can get another world title fight after beating more opposition from the 2nd and 3rd tier, then more power to him. I just think it was the perfect storm that got Smith the fight for the WBO 168lb title against Abraham.
We’re talking about a very, very vulnerable champion in Abraham, who has taken it easy in terms of opposition since winning the WBO title against Robert Stieglitz. Abraham needed someone of Smith’s caliber for him to keep his WBO title in my view, because if he fought anyone remotely good, I think he would have lost his title long ago.
As bad as Arthur Abraham is, Smith was the ideal opponent for him to milk his WBO title and hold onto it a little while longer. I know Abraham is talking about wanting to keep his WBO title for another three years, but that isn’t going to happen. The World Boxing Organization has finally gotten their rankings partially situated with Gilberto Ramirez now ranked at No.2 and ready to fight the winner of this month’s forth fight between Abraham and Stieglitz. There’s no way Abraham beats Ramirez. He should be ranked No.1, not No.2, because Stieglitz has done nothing to deserve being ranked No.1 by the WBO.
“I honestly don’t know what I’m doing. It was only three weeks ago that I fought the best fighter in the division, so I am just taking a rest. And I need a good rest with my family,” Smith said.
If Smith hangs around for another two to three years, he can fight guys like Rocky Fielding and maybe George Groves again if/when he loses to WBC champion Badou Jack. Those would be a couple of decent paydays for Smith. I can’t see him beating either of those guys. If Smith can get a decent scalp on his resume, which I doubt, I can see IBF champion James DeGale giving him a shot at his title even if Smith is ranked at rock bottom at No.15 in the super middleweight rankings. But Smith really needs to beat someone of note, and stop losing all the time.
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