(Credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Scott Gilfoid: #1 IBF Stephen Smith (23-1, 12 KOs) will be challenging for a world title tonight against IBF super featherweight champion Jose “Sniper” Pedraza (21-0, 12 KOs) on Showtime Championship Boxing from the Foxwoods Resort, in Mashantucket, Connecticut. Smith, 30, has won his last 10 fights since being whipped by Lee Selby by an 8th round knockout in 2011.
Unfortunately, Smith hasn’t been taking on what I feel are the best fighters during that stretch so it’s hard to know whether he’s improved or not. You can argue that Smith did very little to earn a title shot against the hard hitting Pedraza, as all Smith had to do in order to get the fight with Pedraza was beat these guys: 34-year-old Devis Boschiero, Barrington Brown (6-10), Jacek Wylezol (11-8), and Pedro Navarrete (28-18-3).
Smith weighed in at 129 pounds on Friday at the weigh-in, but he looked very drained. I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes into tonight’s fight looking like a junior middleweight. I think he’s going to put on a massive amount of weight before he steps foot inside the ring.
I would have liked the International Boxing Federation to have at least setup a good eliminator bout between Smith and the likes of Nicholas Walters, Yuriorkis Gamboa or Jason Sosa as his opponents rather than the 34-year-old Devis Boschiero because they made it way too easy for Smith to earn the shot. I mean, when I see a mandatory challenger, I want them to have earned the spot by fighting the absolute best rather than someone with an inflated ranking, which is what I feel was the case with Devis Boschiero.
There’s no way on earth do I see that guy as being better than Sosa and Gamboa. I think the IBF’s rankings are completely upside down. I’m trying to picture Stephen Smith beating Nicholas Walters to earn a title shot against Pedraza, and the only image that keeps coming to my mind is Smith on the canvas and Walters standing above him.
I don’t know why the IBF doesn’t have Walters ranked above Smith, because it does not make any sense at all in my mind for Smith to be ranked above a talent like him. How in the heck do you create rankings and not have Nicholas Walters at the top of the heap? It’s just so, so confusing.
“We are very confident that I’ve got what it takes. I will do anything that it takes to win this fight and bring the world title back to the UK,” said Smith.
Tonight’s Pedraza vs. Smith fight will take place at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Mashantucket, Connecticut. The fight is taking place on the Gary Russell Jr. vs. Patrick Hyland card. By the way, that fight is perceived as a mismatch. I’m just saying. I hope Pedraza-Smith turns out to be an interesting one because the card will look bad if there’s nothing but one-sided contests up and down the card. The start time for the Russell Jr-Hyland fight card is at 11:00 p.m. ET.
Smith is starting to get up there in age at 30, and if he can’t beat the 26-year-old Pedraza to earn the title, then I don’t know what he can do to try and win a strap, any world strap before he’s passed up by the other arguably more talented contenders. I mean, I see a lot of contenders in the division that I feel are better fighters than Smith. But this is the IBF’s rankings with them putting Smith at the top, so I’m kind of not surprised.
The IBF is the one that has ranked Jo Jo Dan and Kevin Bizier as their number one contenders recently at welterweight. When you see confusing rankings like that, then it kind of doesn’t surprise you when you see Smith ranked #1 by the IBF at super featherweight. If Smith can’t win a world title against Pedraza, then I don’t see it ever happening, because I think Smith would likely need to fight good opponents for him to get ranked at #1 with the other sanctioning bodies, and I don’t see Smith being anyone truly good like Gamboa, Sosa, Takashi Miura, Orlando Salido, Bryan Vasquez, Miguel Berchet and Nicholas Walters.
“Because I had such a successful amateur career, I think that big things were expected of me,” Smith said via ESPN.com. “I had a bit of bad luck with injury, the loss to Selby set me back, but that was more from people writing me off. Lee is world champion now, so there’s no disgrace in that, but people were saying after that fight that I wouldn’t fight for a world title. It can be a fickle sport at times but I’ve come back stronger and I think I will prove a lot of people wrong in America.”
I’m not writing Smith off as a fighter. Maybe he’ll win tonight. I don’t rate Pedraza as being a good fighter. He’s decent, but I think there are far better fighters in the division than him. Pedraza barely won his last fight against Edner Cherry in beating him by a controversial 12 round split decision last October.
I think Cherry did enough to deserve a win over Pedraza. Even if Smith does win tonight, I see him as little more than a paper champion because he won’t have beaten the talents in the division like Walters, Francisco Vargas, Takashi Uchiyama, Javier Fortuna, Roman Martinez, Miguel Berchet, Orlando Salido and Vasyl Lomachenko. Yeah, I listed Lomachenko too because he’s moving up to super featherweight and I rate him as a far better fighter than Smith.