By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn believes that WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (20-1-1, 12 KOs) isn’t going to want to mx it up with his fighter #1 WBC Callum Smith (19-0, 14 KOs) after his 1st round knockout win over Hadillah Mohoumadi (20-4-1, 15 KOs) last Saturday night in their fight at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK. Smith stopped the 35-year-old Mohoumadi with a flurry of heavy shots that caused referee Francisco Alloza Rosa to stop the fight at 1:41 of the round.
Badou has a title defense this month against #8 WBC Lucian Bute (32-3, 25 KOs) on April 30 at the DC Armory in Washington, DC. If Smith and Hearn wants a world title shot against the hard hitting 32-year-old Badou, then they’re going to need to put a sock in it and learn how to wait their turn. Smith will get his turn at fighting Badou, but he’s going to need to wait. All good things come in time.
I would suggest that Hearn find Smith a good opponent for him to fight while he waits for Badou to get some time available to defend his title against him. I mean, Smith hasn’t fought anyone remotely good at this point in his career, so it would be nice if Hearn finally took the training wheels off him so that the boxing fans could see whether he’s any good or not.
All we’ve seen from Smith is him fighting weaker fringe level fighters like Mohoumadi and Rocky Fielding, neither of which I see as true contenders. I see them as 2nd tier guys at best.
“I’d like to fight for the World title in September,” said Smith via Fight News, “but if I have to wait then so be it. I’m only 25 and I am improving all the time. Every time I step up I win, so why not keep going?”
Smith needs to apply some pressure to Hearn to get him to match him up against one of the talented contenders in the 168lb division like the Dirrell brothers, Jesse Hart, Jose Uzcategui, Patrick Nielsen, J’Leon Love or Fedor Chudinov. Any one of those fighters would be perfect for Smith to fight because we’d find out if he’s any good or not.
We haven’t been able to learn anything about Smith during his career other than the fact that he can beat the trial horses that everyone is supposed to beat in the top 15. If Smith can’t beat the best, then we’re going to find that out when he gets inside the ring with Badou. But it’s better to find out sooner rather than later by having Smith fight one of the above mentioned contenders before time is wasted putting him in with Badou Jack.
Smith, 25, will be attending Badou’s fight this month on April 30 against Bute at the DC Armory in Washington, DC. I guess Smith will be looking to see how talented Badou is close up so that he can estimate how he’d do against him when the two of them face each other in 2016 or 2017. Frankly, I don’t know how much Smith will be able to learn about Badou from watching him fight.
Badou is one of those talents that you can only know how good he is when you’re inside the ring with him. We saw how Anthony Dirrell’s people picked out Badou, perhaps thinking he was a beatable opponent. Instead of Dirrell winning the fight, it was Badou who rose to the occasion and won the fight by a 12 round decision. Also on the Badou vs. Bute card will be IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale defending his title against Rogelio Medina on the April 30 card.
“Callum is the real deal,” said Hearn. “He’ll dominate the super middleweight division for years to come. He’s going to fight for the world title and he’s going to win it. He’s only going to get better and better. Badou Jack won’t want to fight Callum; he just demolished Mohoumadi – Jack won’t stand up to that force. He’s got freakish power and he’s a scary, scary man. He makes the weight easy so let him dominate this division now.”
I don’t agree with Hearn about Badou not wanting to fight Smith now. I see no fear at all being there for Badou as far as him facing Smith. I see Smith as being made to order for Badou because he’s so upright, so easy to hit, and has so many bad habits developed in part due to the poor opposition that Hearn has been feeding him. Further, I also don’t agree with Hearn about Callum dominating the super middleweight division for years to come.
Yes, I think Callum will dominate the awful opposition that Hearn feeds him, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t think for a second that Callum will be able to beat the good super middleweights in the division. Callum will dominate the guys that Hearn puts him in with as long as he doesn’t match him against anyone good, but I see him getting whipped when he eventually steps it up against someone that can fight rather than the poor opposition in the top 15. I don’t think Mohoumadi and Fielding are top 15 level contenders, so it really doesn’t matter that Smith was able to beat them because he wasn’t facing a good opponent ns in my view.
“There’s only James DeGale who poses him a threat,” cruiserweight Tony Bellew said to skysports.com about his belief that DeGale is Callum’s only threat in the 168lb division. “Every other fighter? How do they beat Callum Smith? How does Arthur Abraham beat Callum? He can’t out-box him, he can’t out-fight him and he can’t out-muscle him. Then we go to Badou Jack, a guy who likes to box at range and work his way in. If Callum wanted to he could dictate at range with his jab, but he’s also got the power to take him.”
I think Arthur Abraham would be a tremendous threat to Smith if that fight was to happen, which obviously it won’t because Smith is targeting WBC champion Badou and Abraham is the WBO champion. I think Abraham is too powerful, too experienced and too tough for the easy to hit stork-like Callum.
Comments are closed.