Callum Smith moving up to 175

Yarde and Buatsi might have enough high chances to KO/TKO him. Both of them hit hard, yeah, Yarde is limited but if you look at his fight vs Kovalev, he is able to batter guy. Yeah, he lost vs Kovalev but had put him in torture for 2 rounds.
Yarde looked better in 2 rounds vs Kovalev than Canelo till this round where he stopped Kovalev. He might stop lad.
Arthur might be less risky opponent than these mentioned here or for example Bolotņiks for him, while Arthur is real risk to loss fight via decision, he will attempt jab him all night.

 

Agree. Pointless changing promotor. Hearn is the best guy out there.

Smith is hard to market. He has the personality of a tin of beans and looked clueless how to control a low output Canelo.

 

Depends on who you are referring to. Many folks on this forum been saying long before the Canelo fight than Mundo Plank Smith whilst maybe regarded as the #1 @168 due to the WBSS was the best of a really poor bunch. And arguably not the best as he lost to Ryder, and way back was being lit up by Erik Skoglund like a Christmas Tree and if that dude had more power he'd have KO'd Smith!

So he beat a one-armed past-prime George Groves?

Most boxing savvy folks from the UK that been following Smith for any length of time gave him little chance against Canelo. Still, I was mighty disappointed by his lack of desire to win in that fight - he maybe showed resilience to last the 12, but never really showed that he wanted to win.

Maybe that's why Canelo has settled @168 because there really aren't any great challenges for him at that weight (possibly Benavides aside). Easy pickings for Undisputed!

 

Well, not only vs Canelo there is high risk.
Athur: might jab all night.
Yarde: limited but power and athleticism he does have I think considerably more than even prime Kovalev and he had been successful not only with head punching, more with body blows.
Bolotņiks: he might handle out semi concussion and get down guy with 1 left hook or half hook alone while he is orthodox stance boxer and he normally works with punches to core + does have good gas tank, might explode in 1-2 round, might in middle of fight or be considerably more fresh in the end of fight. Damn and he had proved that he is able to outbox 18-0-0 boxer all 12 rounds and remain disciplined and stop hard hitting lads.
While I think he looks that does have lesser power for body blows than Yarde, he is methodical and might improve to be more precise.


This division also does have boxers with good reach who are more huge blokes than these mentioned in this post.

Burton?
I think he will not stop him and still, he is silky and tough lad here.

Maybe he should have some 1 lad from top 100-300 not higher and if will be successful to fight vs Burton or lads like he and then after this step up with higher ranked boxers.

 

I think he has reached the peak of his career already

I dont see him doing much of anything at LHW unless he discovers some seriously good PEDs

As others have pointed out he doesnt bang and he is very easy to hit, his advantages that made him successful at SMW are gone. Unless without having to drain himself those extra 8lbs somehow puts a lot more into his stamina and punching power. But I doubt it.

Ryder was all over him.

 

Pre-Canelo I would've said he'd do quite well at LHW, I don't like the way he played timid and got bullied by an effective midget (I know that's not a politically correct word), walking him down and beating him up. There are far too many legit big hitters that are just as large and strong. He may not do as well as I previously envisioned.

 

No.

 

Stayed too long at the weight in order to land the Canelo fight.

Obviously that was the biggest money around but if he'd moved up after taking the WBSS he'd have been in a good position to quickly land a good fight at the bigger weight and there'd be a real buzz about him.

 

So....................you're gonna disregard everything else I said beyond that stating why I no longer feel he'd do well?

Got it.

 

He won't be getting up, Jim.

 

I never claimed that

 

Clenelo popped that bicep.

 

Naw, I don't have anything against this boxer I just talk about dudes that are in this weight class.

For example the same Yarde alone, yeah, he in good shape most likely will win him and still there is high risk: if he will land on him 2-3 proper body punches, he will feel that better he had get these from Bivol or Kovalev not from Yarde.
While yeah, he is yet limited and with flaws, he might have chance to stop him in distance for example.
etc and etc here.

Dudes at LHW are far more huge than SMW dudes and there yeah is big difference.

The same Buatsi, while not yet really tested in top, does have power far above SMW boxer's punches level and is pretty athletic for LHW division. He does have enough KO power and punches will not be like at SMW division.

If he can beat Buatsi, Arthur, Yarde and Burton then I might be more confident that he is capable to perform well in LHW top 10-15 here.
Lads just really are huge there if compare with SMW.