What makes it difficult to agree with Hearn is Smith\u2019s lack of experience against world-level opposition during his six-year pro career. While he\u2019s done an admirable job of compiling an unbeaten 18-0 record, none of the victories have come against top-level fighters.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old Smith\u2019s best wins have come against fringe-level fighters. He\u2019s done what he\u2019s supposed to, beating the opposition put in front of him, but he\u2019s not fought the type of talents that would give people the chance to gauge accurately how well he\u2019ll do when he gets through with the Puerto Rican knockout artist.<\/p>\n
Dalton\u2019s last five wins:<\/p>\n
Mathieu Germain
\nWalid Quizza
\nJose Zepeda
\nSam Maxwell
\nBilly Allington<\/p>\n
Smith has not faced several established contenders in the 140-pound division: Ernesto Mercado, Keyshawn Davis, Oscar Duarte, Jamaine Ortiz, and Kenneth Sims.<\/p>\n
One of the problems in the sport is that fighters aren\u2019t tested before fighting for world titles. The emphasis is on putting together a record to earn them a title shot, but there\u2019s no developing. Is Smith a beneficiary of this? We\u2019ll see. Perhaps the sparring he\u2019s had will make up for the lack of quality opposition he\u2019s faced during his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cSubriel is a tremendous fighter, but it\u2019s just the perfect style for Dalton Smith. I think he\u2019ll stop Subriel Matias late in the fight,\u201d said promoter Eddie Hearn to Ring Magazine.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s best chance of winning is to try for an early knockout, because if the fight with Matias goes into the later rounds, the chances of him getting beaten down and stopped will increase.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t run. You haven\u2019t faced anyone like me before, and I will prove that to you on January 10,\u201d said Matias to Boxingscene about Smith.<\/p>\n
The Matias-Smith was briefly at risk of being canceled after Matias came up positive in a VADA-conducted test for low levels of the banned substance Ostarine. The\u00a0New York State Athletic Commission and WBC cleared Matias. So, the fight is being allowed to continue.<\/p>\n
Olly Campbell has been covering boxing since 2014, offering readers a clear ringside perspective and thoughtful analysis on many of the sport\u2019s biggest nights. His work focuses on fighter tendencies, corner adjustments, and the technical details that shape high-level bouts. Over the years, Olly has reported on major cards in Las Vegas, New York, London, and across the UK boxing circuit, earning a reputation for levelheaded, detail-driven coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What makes it difficult to agree with Hearn is Smith\u2019s lack of experience against world-level opposition during his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-328880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328880","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=328880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}