Stephen Smith eyes third world title shot

[Boxing Prospect]

Boxrec's Top 20 SF's has Smith at 18. I don't see him beating many of the other 19 without some home cooking. Generously, I think he could beat 5 of them.

Out of interest who are the 5 you think he COULD beat? I'd guess Klassen, Ogawa (he's the most limited of the Japanese guys in the top 20), Gonzalez, Oquendo and Martinez

The division is a really interesting one and theres a bunch of good bouts to come this year/
Vasyl Lomachenko v Nicholas Walters
Kenichi Ogawa v Rikki Naito II
Jezreel Corrales v Takashi Uchiyama II
Masayuki Ito v Takuya Watanabe (as a Japanese fighter fan this is drool worthy with both being criminally under-rated)

[crusader]

Sosa comfortably beat Smith, as did Pedraza, as did Selby.

Smith isn't world class and with the current distribution of belts probably isn't going to become a title holder, though he's good enough to beat some Di Rocco level opponent for a vacant belt likes Burns did.

[CaptainSpacerod]

Fvckin hell give the lad a break. He's just fought a genuinely world class fighter and although he was clearly beaten he didn't look totally out of place at that level. It's common sense to see fighting for the British title again as a backward step. Liam Walsh would be a good opponent but him aside who's Smith supposed to fight to progress his career at domestuc level ?

It's a sign of the times unfortunately. 20 or 30 years ago a good British champion would progress to European level have some meaningful fights which he learns from and if he did well he'd make the further step to world level. Nowadays with the proliferation of bullsh1t interim titles and international titles and regular world titles etc etc etc a British lad who shows some class is put on this conveyer belt of meaningless title fights where he won't necessarily learn very much and then finds himself almost out of his depth if matched with a bona fide world class opponent.

In reality most of the British "world champions" that the media keep banging on about to perpetuate this "golden era for British boxing" myth are barely world class let alone world champions. The Smith brothers all fall into that category at best. Paul is barely British level let's be honest, Liam has beaten nobody to suggest he's much above British level, Callum looks a cut above but it's early days yet and Stephen has done well enough when he's stepped up to imo rightly claim to be fringe world level.

[ewenhay]

Fvckin hell give the lad a break. He's just fought a genuinely world class fighter and although he was clearly beaten he didn't look totally out of place at that level. It's common sense to see fighting for the British title again as a backward step. Liam Walsh would be a good opponent but him aside who's Smith supposed to fight to progress his career at domestuc level ?

It's a sign of the times unfortunately. 20 or 30 years ago a good British champion would progress to European level have some meaningful fights which he learns from and if he did well he'd make the further step to world level. Nowadays with the proliferation of bullsh1t interim titles and international titles and regular world titles etc etc etc a British lad who shows some class is put on this conveyer belt of meaningless title fights where he won't necessarily learn very much and then finds himself almost out of his depth if matched with a bona fide world class opponent.

In reality most of the British "world champions" that the media keep banging on about to perpetuate this "golden era for British boxing" myth are barely world class let alone world champions. The Smith brothers all fall into that category at best. Paul is barely British level let's be honest, Liam has beaten nobody to suggest he's much above British level, Callum looks a cut above but it's early days yet and Stephen has done well enough when he's stepped up to imo rightly claim to be fringe world level.

Well said. Nail firmly on the head with that post.

[sgtcecil]

Boxrec's Top 20 SF's has Smith at 18. I don't see him beating many of the other 19 without some home cooking. Generously, I think he could beat 5 of them.

He almost beat Sosa, so I don't see why he can't beat any of the other top 20 fighters.

The other night you thought he did beat him. Did you rewatch it and change your mind?

I remember Simpson fighting Smith twice and I thought he was unlucky in both. I can't see Smith beating any of the current champions. His best chance is to fight a couple of ranking fights and hope a title becomes vacant IMO.

Simpson beat smith in both fights IMO

[crusader]

I also had Simpson winning both, although they were super close.

[Stuarty]

I also had Simpson winning both, although they were super close.

I thought the second fight was tight but I had Simpson winning.

I was at the first fight and at the time I had Simpson winning pretty comfortable and so did everyone sitting round about us. I watched it again and he definitely should've got the nod.

[Andrew]

Eyes a third world title shot ??

He has not had a second world title fight because Sosa IS NOT A WORLD CHAMPION

The WBA Super featherweight champion is Jezreel Corrales who dethroned the long reigning Uchiyama a few months back and is rematching him at the end of the year.

Smith got well beaten in Saturday by a fighter who is not top 5 in the division.

He is not world level End Of. He did the standard British thing target the weakest, vacant champion or in the case bullshit champion and failed because they aren't good enough.