Does anyone recall this guy? He had a record of 180-20-2 with 120 ko's and a whopping 25 no contests. That sounds like a boxing record from a hundred years ago. It is speculated he fought more under phony names. He fought a ton of what would probably be considered, would be fighters, but he did have some good wins over Kirkland Laing and 88 gold medalist Robert Wanglia. Although he lost ,he managed to go the distance with Buddy McGirt in 95 , before losing to a 24-1 Gary Murray, going the distance in a scrap for the World boxing union title. After that he was stopped by Mark Breland, Antonio Margarito and Julio Chavez as he was about done as he fought light heavys towards the end. He didn't have a win in his last 17 fights with 4 or 5 no contests .I guess you could call him a true,,professional journeyman.
I met him a few years ago in Oklahoma City at a fight card that was being held to benefit a school that had been hit by a tornado. He was setting up tables at ringside and I was putting up the ring and we took it all down afterwards. He was a good guy.
I used to watch him on ESPN all the time in the late 80s and 90s. A lot of their shows were held in the Midwest, and he was often on them. He didn't fight people under assumed names or anything. He just took fights on the undercards of basically every show he could find across the Midwest. What was interesting about Buck Smith was he could box and punch (he had a lot of KOs) and he never really sparred. That's why he fought so often. He said why spar when I can just fight and get paid. So that's what he did. If you just look at his record, for instance, in the first week of March 1993, he fought four times in six days. He fought in Kansas City, Missouri on Monday. Drove to Louisville, Kentucky, and fought on a show on Wednesday night and again on Thursday night. Then he drove home to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and fought on Saturday night. Spent a day or two with the family. Then he was back on the road driving to Nashville and fought on Tuesday night. He just treated it as a job. You drive to the location. Do your work. Go to the next spot. Do your work there. Go home. When I see people fawning over pioneers with a lot of fights, and how much experience they had, and how they all must've been so superior to today's fighters who don't fight as often, I always think about Buck Smith. You didn't necessarily have to be "great" to have a couple hundred fights and a couple hundred wins. You just needed to take basically every fight offered, know your fundamentals (don't fight like a novice) and don't worry about spending hours in the gym sparring for months before fights. Most of the fighters today spend all their time in the gym sparring instead of fighting. They're still putting in the work and the rounds. But their records don't reflect that.
