{"id":719517,"date":"2026-07-30T18:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T18:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/719517\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T18:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T18:07:13","slug":"royston-barney-smith-british-champion-chasing-stoppage-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/719517\/","title":{"rendered":"Royston Barney-Smith: British champion chasing stoppage win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Royston Barney-Smith believes a victory against Reece Bellotti on Saturday would send out a “massive statement” to the super-featherweight division. <\/p>\n

The 22-year-old British and Commonwealth champion from Southampton takes on ‘The Bomber’ in the chief-support to Pierce O’Leary’s light-welterweight bout against Mark Chamberlain in Dublin. <\/p>\n

Barney-Smith comes into this contest off the back of picking up the Lonsdale belt in April, and is hoping to continue building on some big recent wins. <\/p>\n

“I’m 150% sure that I’m going to win and I’m fully prepared for any style of fight,” Barney-Smith told BBC Sport. <\/p>\n

“Bellotti’s game and he’s there to win but he’s going to have to bring something special to win on Saturday night and I don’t know what he brings to faze me.<\/p>\n

“Winning would send out a massive statement to the world scene because Ryan (Garner) has the WBC Interim belt now, so if I can beat Bellotti in a better fashion than he did then it’s a big statement.”<\/p>\n

Fellow Southampton man Ryan Garner forced a late stoppage of Bellotti<\/a> in 2025, and Barney-Smith is hoping to better that.<\/p>\n

Bellotti, 35, who has 20 wins with seven defeats, previously held the British and Commonwealth titles and comes into this fight off the back of a loss to Josh Padley.<\/p>\n

Barney-Smith trains in Essex with Ben Davison and would add the vacant IBO Intercontinental title to his collection with a victory this weekend. <\/p>\n

He believes that a win would put him into the conversation for a big fight with current IBO super-featherweight champion Jono Carroll.<\/p>\n

“The IBO intercontinental belt tees me up for fighting Jono Carroll next,” Barney-Smith said.<\/p>\n

“I can’t wait to move on to bigger and better things, obviously, I’m not looking past Reece as it is going to be a cracking fight and a good night in Dublin.<\/p>\n

“I’d love that fight and I’ll be number one in the division with a win on Saturday, It’d mean the world to me to have my arm raised and I’m going for a stoppage victory.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Royston Barney-Smith believes a victory against Reece Bellotti on Saturday would send out a “massive statement” to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-719517","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\/719517","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=719517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}