{"id":178603,"date":"2025-10-04T07:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T07:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/178603\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T07:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T07:29:09","slug":"david-morrell-vs-callum-smith-in-the-works-for-early-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/178603\/","title":{"rendered":"David Morrell vs. Callum Smith in the works for early 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A highly palatable pitting featuring two of the top light heavyweights in the thick of the division appears likely, as a fight between <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/fighters\/david-morrell-2156\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Morrell <\/a>and <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/fighters\/callum-smith-3989104\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Callum Smith <\/a>is in the works for the first quarter of next year, Matchroom Boxing head Eddie Hearn told <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Ring<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI talked to Turki Alalshikh about staging that fight as part of a Saudi card in early 2026,\u201d said Hearn. \u201cWe&#8217;ve pretty much agreed to that, and I think you&#8217;ll see it hopefully land there. It&#8217;s a tremendous fight, a brilliant fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith is ranked third by The Ring at 175 pounds. Morrell is seventh. <\/p>\n<p>Smith (31-2, 22 KOs) was a finalist to land a date against David Benavidez for the <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/news\/ring-iv-david-benavidez-vs-anthony-yarde-to-headline-nov-22-riyadh\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ring IV card on November 22 in Saudi Arabia,<\/a> but Anthony Yarde ultimately got the assignment. <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/news\/callum-smith-told-to-take-a-break-david-morrell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Smith last fought in February<\/a> and outlasted the previously undefeated <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/fighters\/joshua-buatsi-1414\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Joshua Buatsi<\/a> in a slugfest to capture the WBO interim title.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, a 35-year-old from Liverpool, petitioned in May for a mandatory title shot against Ring and unified champion Dmitry Bivol, but the sanctioning body denied the request. <\/p>\n<p>Morrell (12-1, 9 KOs), meanwhile, has had a rocky year. The 27-year-old Cuban southpaw was fortunate to sneak away with a <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/news\/david-morrell-jr-overcomes-5th-round-knockdown-edges-imam-khataev-by-split-decision\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">split decision win against Imam Khataev in July <\/a>during a fight in which he got dropped. Morrell also lost against Benavidez in February by unanimous decision. <\/p>\n<p>Manouk Akopyan is The Ring\u2019s lead writer. Follow him on X and Instagram: @ManoukAkopyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A highly palatable pitting featuring two of the top light heavyweights in the thick of the division appears&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6842,6836,6841,6840,6834,6102,6837,6838,6839,6835,6588,6847,6846,6830,6828,6829,6844,6831,6827,6848,6843,101,6845,6826,6833,56,54,55,6832],"class_list":["post-178603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-community","tag-boxing-fights","tag-boxing-history","tag-boxing-interviews","tag-boxing-magazine","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxing-photos","tag-boxing-rankings","tag-boxing-schedule","tag-boxing-videos","tag-boxing-results","tag-disqualification","tag-draw","tag-fight","tag-fighter","tag-fighter-news","tag-knockout","tag-latest-boxing-matches","tag-ring","tag-ring-magazine","tag-split-decision","tag-sports","tag-technical-knockout","tag-the-ring","tag-top-fighters","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}