By Charles Brun: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum states IBF, WBC & WBO light heavyweight champ Artur Beterbiev will safeguard against Callum Smith in early August in French Canada in Montreal or Quebec.
Smith (29-1, 21 KOs) is the WBC compulsory for Beterbiev (19-0, 19 KOs), and the World Boxing Council has actually currently purchased the fight. If not for that, Beterbiev would likely be fighting WBA 175-lb champ Dmitry Bivol in the summer season for the indisputable champion.
Fans have actually been clear that they would choose to see Beterbiev fight Bivol next, not the 33-year-old Smith, who looked horrible in a one-sided loss to Canelo Alvarez in 2020.
“As far as where it’s going to be. It’s going to remain in French Canada, whether Montreal or Quebec,” stated Bob Arum to the Ringside Reporter about where the Artur Beterbiev vs. Callum Smith fight will be staged. “It will be at the very start of August.”
The WBC set a low difficulty for the Eddie Hearn promoted Callum Smith to end up being Beterbiev’s compulsory by approving a fight in between him and France’s Mathieu Bauderlique as a title remover last August.
Bauderlique, 33, had actually been knocked out in 8 rounds by a fighter called Dragan Lepei (22-6-2, 10 KOs) in 2017, which reveals you his qualifications for battling in the WBC title remover against Callum.
Unsurprisingly, Smith wiped out Bauderlique in 4 rounds to make the WBC compulsory position to difficulty Beterbiev for his title.
It’s reasonable to state that boxing fans wouldn’t mind Smith being Beterbiev’s next challenger if he’d made the shot by beating quality opposition and putting more range in between his loss to Canelo.
Smith has actually battled simply two times considering that losing to Canelo, and his wins have actually come against less-than-stellar opposition.
Besides his win over Bauderlique, Smith beat journeyman Lenin Castillo (28-8-1, 19 KOs) by a second-round knockout in September 2021 in his only other fight at 175.
Some of Callum’s fans think he has a shot at beating the 38-year-old Beterbiev due to his advancing age and how he had a hard time in his last title defense against Anthony Yarde in January. Yarde offered Beterbiev an excellent fight with his hand speed and power.
Once Beterbiev found out that all Yarde had for him to fret about was an uppercut, he systematically broke him down till scoring an eighth-round knockout.
The referee stopped the fight too soon after Beterbiev tore down Yarde in round 8. However, with the penalty that Yarde had actually been considering the last number of rounds, the referee selected to stop it due to the fact that Beterbiev would have completed him off if the fight had actually been permitted to continue.
