What do you think Callum Smith's chances are?

I still don't understand this 'undrained' Smith talk

He walks around at 200lbs

He has 7lbs LESS to cut than he did before. Basically, he spends less time in the sauna or sweatbag. So he has around 6 hours or so of less weight cutting to do.

His power has not increased. It doesn't move up in weight. Otherwise everyone would be moving up.

He still fights the same jittery way as he did YEARS ago.

Yes he has a hair trigger left hook but he misses so many times with it and there doesnt appear to be a lot of thought to his game.

I watched several of his fights yesterday and saw the same basic patterns over and over.
Couple that with inactivity of nearly 18 months and a lack of sparring and training and you have a guy who isn't keeping on top of things like he should be.

I will be generous and say Smith wins the opening few rounds until Beterbiev finds his range.

 

He is still a pressure fighter though who will come forward and push Smith on the backfoot. Has he shown and effective left hook on his back foot or just coming forward? If you can't keep Ryder off you how the hell will you keep beterbiev off?

 

Biggest fight of Callum’s career and he shat it. He ran away behind a throw away jab and held onto his chin for dear life against a fighter a foot shorter than him.

I see a repeat of that against Beterbiev. But Beterbiev has lights out power and doesn’t require an opening to open the door. Beterbiev will hit anything and break down the door.

Beterbiev by KO inside 8.

Fighters revert to type in pressure situations.

 

Not only that but Beterbiev has life changing power and doesn’t need an opening to throw it.

He will hit arms and elbows and break the door down.

Callum Smith is a painting by numbers fighter. He can’t fight off the back foot. Against Canelo all he did all night was do a throw away jab and protect his chin immediately afterwards.

Ryder worked him over close and pushed him back, and Smith had no answer as he doesn’t have a boxing brain.

Easy win for Beterbiev.

 

You give far too much credit to being short and a southpaw. To a skilled fighter with such a range advantage, Ryder should be target practice. Just because you are compact does not mean you are hard to hit. Ryder has been beaten up many a time in his career but against a guy with 8 inches reach advantage suddenly he is hard to hit. Ye ok. Will see you after the fight after Smith is walked down and destroyed in a few rounds.

The reason Ryder had such success was simply because he is a tough pressure fighter and Callum is easily bullied and has overrated power. He is the type of fighter that can hurt you if he lands the perfect punch but in general he is not a punishing heavy handed type of puncher, so if you don't let him get off too much he is not a threat. Canelo and Ryder proved that and a few others who smacked him up.

 

But Canelo was a shorter compact fighter too and he made Smith tuck up and retreat.

I'm not saying the same will happen again as Canelo has insane angles to his work but Beterbiev has a very good IQ and ability to reset his opponents also.

 

I agree to an extent...there's other factors to consider that can flip that theory on its head.
That's more of a rock paper scissors analogy that fits the logic.
But when u consider fighters mental states, ambition, will to win, fear of the delusions, effort put into camps and time out of camps
then I'm not as sure Smith comes out of the other end. He doesn't train like he used to, doesn't seem to have the drive he used to and I just think AB has a better team and more structure behind him.

 

Will you give Beterbiev credit if he is the 1st to stop Smith?

 

I think he can't rabbit punch a 6' 1'' fighter.

 

Yarde caused Beterbiev problems and Smith is a lot better than him.I fancy Callum to get the win

 

imho beterbiev is just too good for callum smith, however callum smith has that power so you can't completely write him off. I give him a 10-20% chance of pulling off the upset.