Dalton Smith\u00a0is the new WBC World Super-Lightweight champion after a spectacular stoppage win over Subriel Matias in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Smith started brilliantly in the opening round of the fight at the Barclays Center, and was happy to trade with the fearsome Puerto Rican ruler as the fight caught fire early, but as the fifth round entered it\u2019s final minute, Smith unleashed a devastating assault punctuated with three fearsome right hands that robbed the champion of his senses and sent him to the canvas.<\/p>\n
The defending champion was able to beat the count but was in no position to continue, and Britain had a new World champion in the most stunning circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no words,\u201d said Smith. \u201cA lifelong dream, hard work and sacrifice, it\u2019s all for this moment. My Dad, my Granddad, all my family, we\u2019ve all worked for this and I always believed. It\u2019s a message to anyone that if you believe in yourself, you can go out and achieve your dreams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard some people say that Dalton Smith ain\u2019t tough. I gave my Dad a bit of a heart attack in there as that wasn\u2019t the game plan, but I took all his best shots and thought \u2018you can\u2019t hurt me.\u2019 He was slowing down so I thought \u2018persevere, persevere, and I\u2019ll get you.\u2019 We had plan A, B and C, and at World level you have to do it all.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to sink in for a long time but we always knew this would happen. We had everything against us for this fight. The build up, the testing and so on. But I knew that this was my moment and my opportunity, and that you could throw anything at me. I\u2019ve got the best team around me, the best promoter in the world, and it\u2019s a win for us all.<\/p>\n
\u201cShow me the money! Let me enjoy this moment now, I\u2019m going to embrace it, and the future is bright.\u201d<\/p>\n
For promoter Eddie Hearn, Smith joins the likes of Anthony Joshua and Katie Taylor as fighters\u00a0he has guided to World title glory from debut, and the proud promoter put the Big Apple night right at the top of the magical away days that he\u2019s enjoyed in the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou talk about Darren Barker against Daniel Geale, Kell Brook against Shawn Porter, honestly, that beats everything \u2013 that\u2019s the greatest away win I\u2019ve ever witnessed,\u201d saidHearn. \u201cDalton is a hero. You have to box with Matias, you saw that from Liam Paro, but Matias was on tonight, he was red hot, and he didn\u2019t allow Dalton to box.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo Dalton decided to fight Matias at his own game, which is the worst idea you can have \u2013 he\u2019s never been hurt, he\u2019s never been down \u2013 and he battered him, put him down, in New York to become the latest British World champion. The kid is a hero and there\u2019s a new superstar in the sport of boxing and his name is Dalton Smith.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe boxed lovely in the first round and then all of a sudden he\u2019s getting hurt, he\u2019s cut, but he stayed trading with him. They were both getting tired, but Dalton hit him to the body about a minute before the stoppage and really hurt him, and then the right hands landed and that\u2019s all she wrote \u2013 that is what dreams are made of.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew Dalton was a star, but to do that on the World stage in New York and in that style. People were talking about this fight and that fight, Adam Azim and the like, Dalton Smith has gone out and accepted the boogeyman, met him head on in New York and stopped Subriel Matias to become the World champion \u2013 put some respect on his name.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dalton Smith\u00a0is the new WBC World Super-Lightweight champion after a spectacular stoppage win over Subriel Matias in Brooklyn.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-405970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}