By Scott Gilfoid: WBA Super World super middleweight champion Callum Smith (25-0, 18 KOs) says his next fight will be announced in the next two or three weeks. Smith, 28, isn’t giving any hints about who he’ll be facing, but it seem painfully obvious it’s going to be John Ryder. The boxing world would like to see Callum fight the likes of Saul Canelo Alvarez, Dmitry Bivol, or Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez. However, none of those guys are likely going to be fighting the 6’3″ Smith.
Smith is coming off a victory over George Groves last September in winning the World Boxing Super Series 168 lb tournament. Smith scored a 7th round knockout to win the Muhammad Ali Trophy in capturing the WBSS super middleweight tournament in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Golden Boy Promotions were interested in putting a fight together between Callum and Saul Canelo Alvarez at Wembley Stadium, but Matchroom Sport head honcho Eddie Hearn is cool to the idea. He doesn’t think the fight would sellout Wembley Stadium, and he doesn’t seem to be all that excited about the match for some reason. The only explanation for Hearn not liking the idea of a Canelo-Smith fight is perhaps he wants to slowly build Smith into a big star in the UK that will make money for years to come. Hearn won’t be able to do that if Canelo exposes Smith just as bad as he did with Rocky Fielding last December. Fielding is one of Eddie’s fighters as well, and he was smashed to bits in three rounds by Canelo on December 15 on DAZN.
Despite the fans wanting to see a talented opponent next for Callum, it’s expected that he’ll defend against fellow Matchroom fighter John Ryder (27-4, 15 KOs) next. Ryder is ranked #1 with the World Boxing Association, and he’s well known in the UK with both casual and hardcore boxing fans. Hearn can bring in a nice little audience with the Smith vs. Ryder fight by staging it in Liverpool, England at Anfield. Smith-Ryder is not a fight that the American boxing fans would be interested in seeing, but Hearn still hasn’t done anything to promote Callum’s fights in the U.S to American fans. If it’s not Ryder, then it’s quite possible that Hearn will pick one of these guys for Smith to fight next:
– Fedor Chudinov
– Bilal Akkawy
– Zach Parker
James DeGale and Chris Eubank Jr. will be fighting in February. If Hearn doesn’t mind having Callum sit around and wait for another four months while the winner of that fight licks his wounds, then it’s possible Smith could face one of those guys. That’s not likely though. Smith has already been out of the ring for four months since his win over Groves. He’ got to get back in the ring soon otherwise he’s going to have nothing to show for almost a year. Hearn likes to brag about how he keeps his fighters busy compared to other promoters, but it doesn’t look like that’s case with Callum. He’s been resting on his laurels for a quarter of a year since his win over Groves. Even if a fighter is named in the next three weeks, it’s not likely that the fight will take place soon. We’re probably taking about another three to four months before Smith fights. Smith might be looking at eight months of inactivity by the time he does finally defend his WBA title.
“I think it will be confirmed within the next couple of weeks,” Smith said to skysports.com. “Hopefully that’s the plan, to get something out pretty soon…looking forward to getting back in there. I believe I’m the best in the world, and I can beat anyone in the division. Whoever it is, I’m confident that I’ll have the beating of them,” Smith said.
Just going by Smith’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing, he sounds like he’s still trying to dig up an opponent for his next fight. Hearn said he dropped by a gym recently in the United States and saw former WBC super middleweight champion David Benavidez (20-0, 17 KOs), and he said he likes the idea of putting him in with Smith. However, the 22-year-old Benavidez is already scheduled to fight J’Leon Love on March 16 on the undercard of the Errol Spence Jr. vs. Mikey Garcia card at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
“Benavidez is an amazing fight for Callum Smith,” Hearn said to IFl TV.
Smith took care of business in the WBSS tournament in beating Groves, Nikey Holzken and Erik Skoglund to win the tourney. Some of the better fighters in the super middleweight division didn’t compete in the tournament. Gilberto Ramirez, David Benavidez, Caleb Plant, Jose Uzcategui and Jesse Hart didn’t compete in the tournament. Light heavyweight Dmitry Bivol also didn’t compete in the tournament, which obviously is a good thing for Smith, because he probably would have lost badly to him. Bivol is a special talent. It’s hard to imagine Smith being able to handle that guys shots for any length of time.
There are some good fighters in the division, but the chances of Smith fighting any of them in 2019 are slim. If his next fight is against Ryder, then that’s more of a domestic level fight than a match against a true top world class opponent. A predictable move by Hearn will be to then stick Smith in with the winner of the DeGale vs. Eubank Jr. fight for later on this year. The boxing fans in the UK will love to see Callum fight the winner of the DeGale-Eubank Jr. fight, but it won’t do much for fans outside of the UK. DeGale is seen as a shot fighter by fans, and Eubank Jr. an unskilled guy, who doesn’t know how to fight. Smith needs to take on some of the talents like Benavidez, Ramirez, Bivol, Canelo or Hart, but will Hearn let him? Probably not. Smith would definitely fight those guys if it were up to him, but it’s not. Hearn makes the call in who his fighters like Smith face, and he seems like he’s going to have him milk his WBA title against utterly soft opposition. What can you do when a promoter is unwilling to have his fighters take risks. We’ve seen that with the way Hearn has matched Anthony Joshua. Now it looks like we could see the same with with Callum.