Artur Beterbiev vs Callum Smith expert fight analysis
WBC, IBF, WBO World light-heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev (19-0, 19KO) defends his trio of titles to Brit Callum Smith (29-1, 21KO) in Quebec on January 13.
Even though it's just two weeks into the New Year, it’ll be the fifth world title fight of 2024 – what a way to kick off the year in boxing!
The Russian powerhouse is the only reigning world champion with a 100% KO record. He’s unbeaten in eight world championship contests (five were unified), 14 title fights, and 19 professional bouts.
As an amateur, he won two European golds, plus a silver and gold in the World Championships. During his 295-10 amateur career, he defeated Sergey Kovalev twice, as well as Oleksandr Usyk, but the Ukrainian defeated him twice afterwards, although Beterbiev did manage to drop Usyk with a body shot during their second fight. Defeating and dropping Usyk is something not many boxers can claim to have done.
Callum Smith, 28 from Liverpool, was a national amateur champion and won silver at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. He comes from the famous fighting Smith family, who made history when all four brothers became British champions. The talented quartet are all world title challengers too, with the two younger ones – Callum and Liam – both becoming world champions.
The youngest, Callum, is the most successful of his brothers due to winning the WBA Super and Ring Magazine super-middleweight titles after a successful WBSS tournament where he stopped George Groves in seven rounds in the final.
His only defeat on his record is against four-weight world champion, pound-for-pound superstar Canelo Alvarez, who he lasted 12 rounds with.
Since that defeat, which saw his victor Canelo go on to become undisputed at super-middleweight, ‘Mundo’ has made the successful move up to light-heavyweight where he has stopped two opponents within four rounds. However he has only had one fight per year since 2020, and hasn’t fought at all this year. By the time he steps into the ring with fearsome puncher Beterbiev, he would have only have fought in six rounds over 37 months and will be his first fight in 17 months.
The champion has also been inactive for a year, having last fought in January against Anthony Yarde, so that evens the playing field slightly, by Beterbiev has undergone jaw surgery and is five years older, approaching his forties.
This fight was initially scheduled in August 2023, but was postponed until now due to the champion’s jaw injury, which was caused by an infection after some dental work.
Styles
Beterbiev is pressure fighter with exceptional boxing ability and experience. He is a powerful puncher, very accurate and economical, who is always advancing and likes to fight at mid to close range. Whenever he takes a good shot, he backs up and takes 10 seconds to recover his senses. Yarde caught him a few times during their fight and hurt him, but he bought himself a few seconds to catch his breath and then came onn strong again.
Smith is a stand up tall fighter, very sharp and powerful, with a fantastic, ramrod jab who likes to fight at range. He is an all-rounder who can land hard straight shots from range and big, powerful hooks in close. "Mundo" is looking very powerful at 175lbs – two fights, two KOs.
Betting Odds
2/7 Beterbiev
18/5 Smith
22/1 Draw
Predictions
Smith has youth, size and reach advantages over the Canadian-based Russian. He has better physical attributes than Artur’s last opponent, Yarde, and a better boxing ability too, perhaps around equal in power as well. So, Smith should be able to outdo Yarde, who reached the eighth round and had a few moments of success. His inability to hold when in trouble is what caused the stoppage. There were many moments when he was trapped on the ropes and all he needed to do was reach forward and hold to be to reset again.
Smith’s reach should be able to keep Beterbiev at bay, to begin with, plus he keeps his hands high and guard very tight, and pivots well to his left to keep out of trouble and to not stay in one place for too long.
Smith is most likely to go on the backfoot and hide behind his tight peekaboo guard, where he will shoot out one-twos, left hooks and uppercuts. Yarde had a lot of success with his swift, swiping left hook, which is a punch that smith is very good at landing, so that counter left coupled with a pivot to to his left could be a key way to land hurtful shots, whilst satying out of harm, and racking up the rounds in his favour.
Beterbiev is very accurate though, so when he throws his heavy jabs and right hands, they tend to find the target frequently. He will walk Smith down from the first bell and apply pressure, but it took Canelo nine rounds to be able to really close the gap between them and even with the ensuing four rounds of constant stalking and body shots, the Mexican still couldn’t finish the battered Brit, who was bloodied and bruised but too brave to go down.
Beterbiev could eventually break Smith down, but will it be quicker or later than the eight to nine rounds Canelo took to really start to stick to him? With Smith’s reach and better experience now, he should be able to surpass Yarde’s efforts to reach the championship rounds, but it’s whether he can win enough of the early rounds because if he’s still there in the final third, the heat will be turned up high and that’s where Beterbiev will be at his most dangerous. Another round with Canelo and Callum could have been stopped, but he was able to hear the final bell after a very torrid last four rounds.
Two of Artur’s last five opponents made it to round 10 and two reached the eighth and ninth, so he’s not blowing foes away in the first few rounds like he used to. It was Joe Smith Jr. who recently got stopped in two rounds by Beterbiev but that’s because he came out overly aggressive and paid the price for the wrong tactics. Smith will not make the same mistake, he will be clever and calculated behind his high guard and tall frame. The callenger will aim to keeo the fight long, but the champion will be stepping in close to go for the knockout. It could be a game of cat and mouse, but this is one very powerful, experienced, tough, tall and rangy mouse, who will give as good as he gets.
Verdict
Beterbiev to win by unanimous decision.
