By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten super middleweight contender Rocky Fielding (21-0, 12 KOs), #6 IBF, #10 WBA, #10 WBC, #12 WBO, is confident that he’ll beat the undefeated Callum Smith (17-0, 12 KOs), #1 WBC, #13 IBF, #13 WBO, #14 WBA, in their fight in less than two weeks from now on November 7th for the vacant British super middleweight title at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK.
The 6’3” Smith will likely have the fans on his side in this fight, but Fielding is still confident that with his punching power and his ability to throw big power shots from a bunch of a different angles, he’ll be able to whip Smith. Smith, 25, is coming off of an unimpressive 12 round unanimous decision last June over Christopher Rebrasse.
What we saw in the Smith-Rebrasse fight was that Smith is really only good at throwing body shots with power. His ability to punch to the head seems to be very limited. The power that he throws to the body is much different than the power he throws to the head.
I think there’s some kind of issue with his shoulders, or with the way that he developed his power while coming up the ranks. When you get used to throwing one type of power punch, you’re muscles adapt to it and you’re unable to throw with power elsewhere. I guess that’s why Smith can only throw hard shots to the body.
“I am confident that I can win, and I think I will knock him out,” said Fielding via skysports.com. “He’s been in with Sjekloca and Rebrasse, who cannot punch, and gone the distance. They caught him with shots that if I threw them, they would hurt him.”
Fielding is right about Smith having fought pretty much nobody at this point in his career. His opposition has been just flat out awful, but the same is the case for Fielding. Both of these guys are inexperienced upstarts. But the difference is as far as I can see is that Smith is really easy to hit due to his poor hand-eye coordination with blocking shots, and he has a bad habit of standing straight up like a stork rather than widening his stance the way taller fighters like Klitschko does.
I see this as a training issue. If Smith’s trainers haven’t been able to notice and iron out this flaw in his game, then it’s time that Smith dumps his trainer and finds someone that can help him widen his stance and fix his nonexistent defense, because Fielding is going to whip him bad on November 7th and leave him a beaten up fighter on the canvas by the time this fight is over with.
I see Fielding as having the much better pro fighting style than Smith, who I see as more of an amateur with the way he pecks away with single shots.
“When I come in throwing shots from different angles and with both hands, I’ve been knocking people clean out,” Fielding said. “He’s been putting away blown up middleweights with his body shots. He put Rebrasse down with one but he got up, take that away and what has he got?”
What Fielding say is so true. He does throw punches from different angles, and he’s able to do this with big power on his shots. It’s rare that fighters are able to throw with big power when throwing from the kind of strange angles that Fielding throws his punches from, but he’s good at getting leverage on his shots. He doesn’t need to wind up to get big power on his punches. The power is already there.
I don’t know why Callum Smith hasn’t been fighting the super middleweight talents like the Dirrell brothers, because I think they would jump at the chance to fight him and give him his first loss of his career. However, Smith would likely need to come to the U.S to fight the Dirrells because I don’t see them coming to the UK and risk being robbed of a decision. Andre Dirrell had a bad experience in his fight against Carl Froch in 2009 in losing a 12 round split decision in the Super Six tournament. Since then, Dirrell hasn’t been back to the UK to fight.
I don’t see Smith as being ready for a title shot or for a fight against Fielding. I see this going really badly for Smith in this fight with him getting knocked out by the 7th.
Comments are closed.