Ward vs Smith question.

With the weight issue I think Smith is a total disgrace, he has embarrassed himself. Smith looked in awful shape on the scales, disgusting to be honest.

I do not think Smith will see the second half of the fight, he might well "have a go early" but I believe he will put in his place quickly and then it's just a matter of when Ward wants to end it.

Of course Smith has a punchers chance, anything can happen, we've all seen huge shocks but this would be right up there if Smith somehow manages to pull it off.

The weight and the condition he is in is a ready made excuse for after his defeat in my opinion, he'll blame the 172 catchweight as being awkward to calculate after all these years, not having Joe Gallagher over there will be another excuse for his poor efforts.

I hope the Sky Team are brutally honest tonight and speak the truth, they have hammered other fighters in the past for missing weights so I hope they are consistent but Smith works on Sky so I have a feeling the excuses will start as soon as the program begins.

 

It won't last 4 rounds.

 

normally i would agree smith has been unprofessional by coming in over the weight but when its a catchweight i don't care and it will make no difference unless ward has slipped a huge amount. i do think ward has wasted some of his best years and will not be the same fighter but is still plenty good enough for most fighters out there

 

Joe Gallagher is there with him. He can be seen in the Face to Face press conference photos with Smith, Ward and Virgil Hill. Also saw him on Sky today as Hearn was fielding "weighty" questions.

 

I read that Smith had in the past slated Rocky Fielding for coming in overweight for a bout. Can anyone confirm this and shed light on what was said.

Hopefully big Glenn is in the studio as he'll rightly slate him. The old pals brigade of Bellew, Froch, Nelson etc will probably just hammer on about the catchweight instead.

 

he slated him when he came in 6lns overweight for the adamu fight questioning his professionalism, in fairness to smith that was a title fight, this isnt

 

https://twitter.com/rocky87fielding/status/612286281763192832

Good stuff

 

Meant Virgil Hunter, not Hill, always make that error. I'd rather see Virgil Hill fight Ward than Smith, come to think of it.

 

Ok I stand corrected, I thought Gallagher was with Callum getting him ready for his next fight.

Maybe he flew out to do the corner?

cWhat did Hearn say about it?

 

Big fan of Paul Smith though i dont think he will go past 6 rounds or so with Ward as i expect Gallagher to pull him out at that stage. Think he will look for knockout and if that dont work he will be pulled out imo before he takes to much damage. Firstly Ward should have been stripped as it will be 2 years since he defended his belt, he should have been stripped for having a catchweight fight after such lack of activity. Secondly Paul Smith has been deeply unprofessionally coming in over weight so much. Either he has injuries we don't know about and he has not had a proper camp and he is turning up to get a nice wedge of cash or maybe he is prepared to lose a percentage of the purse as he fancies with extra weight he could pull of the shock of all shocks. Either way Ward is the A side so surprised he never refused to fight him and get a replacement.

 

He just said a mistake had been made with Smith's water intake and the flight. He said it would go ahead, once they had satisfied Ward. I think that may have meant he was going to try to lose more weight!

 

:good thanks

Well no surprises there, Hearn making poor excuses about water intake and flights.
At least I know what I will probably have to look forward to from Sky's coverage later.

 

No chance, Smith gets beaten up and stopped.