{"id":790950,"date":"2026-07-10T08:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T08:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/790950\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T08:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T08:04:12","slug":"billam-smith-eyes-late-2025-return-after-rozicki-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/790950\/","title":{"rendered":"Billam-Smith eyes late 2025 return after Rozicki victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chris Billam-Smith will not wait for Jai Opetaia and is targeting a fight before the year ends. The <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/cruiserweight\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cruiserweight<\/a> is looking at October, November or December for his next outing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m not going to wait around. I want to be out again this year. I&#8217;ve no idea what&#8217;s next. Whether that&#8217;s October, November, December time, they&#8217;re the dates I&#8217;m looking at.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>  \u2014 Chris Billam-Smith, via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/boxing\/news\/12040\/13562092\/chris-billam-smith-wont-wait-around-for-jai-opetaia-after-brutal-ryan-rozicki-win-i-want-to-fight-again-this-year\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky Sports<\/a><\/p>\n<p>What Chris Billam-Smith said<\/p>\n<p>Billam-Smith beat Ryan Rozicki and immediately turned his attention to staying active. Opetaia holds a decision win over the Bournemouth fighter from their 2024 meeting. The <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/cruiserweight\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cruiserweight<\/a> division remains fluid with no clear mandatory challenger emerging for either man.<\/p>\n<p>What it moves<\/p>\n<p>Billam-Smith&#8217;s timeline puts pressure on his team to secure an opponent quickly. Whether he gets a rematch with Opetaia or takes another fight depends on the sanctioning picture. His willingness to fight soon keeps him in the mix for any big <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/cruiserweight\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cruiserweight<\/a> clash that surfaces.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/boxing\/news\/12040\/13562092\/chris-billam-smith-wont-wait-around-for-jai-opetaia-after-brutal-ryan-rozicki-win-i-want-to-fight-again-this-year\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">skysports.com<\/a>. Full <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/fighter\/chris-billam-smith\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Billam-Smith<\/a> fight history and recent news at boxingnews.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Billam-Smith will not wait for Jai Opetaia and is targeting a fight before the year ends. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-790950","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\/790950","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=790950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}