By Scott Gilfoid: WBO junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith (22-0-1, 12 KOs) will be taking what presumably is his second voluntary title defense against #11 WBO fringe contender Predrag Radosevic (30-1, 11 KOs) next month on June 4 at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK.
This is a very similar opponent to Smith’s first defense of his WBO title which came against an overmatched Jimmy Kelly last December. Smith won that fight by a 7th round knockout. I would say that Kelly is world’s better than the 31-year-old Radosevic. We’re talking pretty weak here.
Radosevic’s resume is padded with a lot of 3rd tier fodder opponents and the only decent name on his entire resume is Felix Sturm, who blasted him out in four rounds three years ago in 2013 in a tune-up fight, I still remember the criticism Sturm received for fighting Radosevic at the time.
The only argument you could make at the time for Sturm taking the fight was he using Radosevic as a tune-up fight after having lost back to back fights against Daniel Geale and Sam Soliman. Sturm’s loss to Soliman was later changed to a no contest after he failed a drug test for the fight. But for Liam Smith to be defending his title against Radosevic, it just looks bad.
The positive side of taking a weak challenger like Radosevic is that the 27-year-old Smith stands a good chance of winning the fight. You can say that Smith has a very, very good chance of winning this fight.
The negative side of the fight is that Smith isn’t helping to increase his popularity in the 154lb division due to him fighting another weak opponent in a voluntary defense. How in the heck is Smith ever going to become popular in the junior middleweight division if he’s going to be fighting fodder opponents like Jimmy Kelly and Predrag Radosevic?
I don’t know if that’s a concern for the 27-year-old Smith. I think he’s just trying to hold onto his WBO title any way he can. I mean, the World Boxing Organization’s top 15 ranking is gawd awful, but they’ve got at least six guys in their ranking that I believe would beat Smith when given the chance. The other fighters are just mixed bag of guys with padded records filled with fluff names.
Once Smith beats Radosevic on June 4, he’ll likely wind up fighting #3 WBO Demtrius Andrade in his mandatory defense of his WBO title. That’s a clear loss for Smith in my view. Andrade is a very good fighter, and Smith is not. #1 WBO Austin Trout and #2 WBO Miguel Cotto are guys that won’t likely be fighting Smith. Cotto wants a big name like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and a fight against Smith would be a total waste of time because he’s not well known in the U.S.
Austin Trout has a fight scheduled already against IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo on May 21 and Trout will likely be losing that fight by a knockout. He definitely won’t be winning it in my view because Charlo is the best fighter in the 154lb division right now from the way I see it.
It’s good for Liam Smith that he won’t be fighting Trout, because I see him getting his head boxed off. But it’s also bad for Smith because with a payday fight against Cotto not happening and a fight against the lighter hitting Trout not happening as well, it means he’ll likely need to fight Andrade. He can punch and I see him making easy work of Smith in whipping him badly and taking his title. It’s unfortunate for Smith that he didn’t get a big payday fight against one of the bigger names in the junior middleweight division instead of burning through two voluntary defenses by fighting weak opponents in Kelly and Radosevic.
Here’s the WBO’s current top 15 rankings:
1. Austin Trout
2. Miguel Cotto
3. Demetrius Andrade
4. Oleksandr Spyrko
5. Vanes Martirosyan
6. Yuki Nonaka
7. Sirimongkol Singwancha
8. Gary Corcoran
9. Michel Soro
10. Willie Nelson
11. Predrag Radosevic
12. Ahmet Patterson
13. Liam Williams
14. Stephan Horvath
15. Dennis Hogan
I don’t view Radosevic as the absolute worst of the current top 15 in the WBO’s weak rankings, but I do see him as very close to being the worst of that lot. I definitely don’t agree that Radosevic should be ranked above Ahmed Patterson.