WBA Super 168lbs champion Callum Smith may have to look closer to home for his next opponent.
Smith had been in the running to face Canelo Alvarez until the Mexican superstar opted to meet WBO super-middleweight champion and fellow Matchroom fighter Billy Joe Saunders before the Covid-19 lockdown took hold and scuppered those plans.
With the boxing world treading carefully into a Coronavirus disrupted schedule, Smith may now entertain a domestic rival with most mega-fights off the table for the timebeing, according to trainer/manager Joe Gallagher.
“Callum is a world champion, coming up for nearly two years now,” Gallagher told Sky Sports. “The main thing for Callum in this lockdown, we’ve got to get him out and get him busy, and get him going again, whether that means we have to fight a British fighter over here first before we have to go stateside.
“We don’t know. There’s loads of possibilities. There’s Callum Smith-Billy Joe, [Zach] Parker who just became Billy Joe’s mandatory after winning his last fight. That could happen over here. You just don’t know.”
Gallagher also believes that Canelo’s team should have proposed a more substantial offer to his man if they were serious about making that fight. The Mexican now appears more likely to face a US-based opponent like Sergiy Derevyanchenko.
“Canelo, he’s that puzzle isn’t he?” said Gallagher. “You can’t work him out in the ring and you can’t work out what he’s going to do outside of the ring, until it’s nailed on.
“Him and Callum Smith would be a great fight. Whether they’re serious about fighting Callum Smith, that’s down to them. If they want to fight Callum Smith and fight the No 1 [at 168lbs], all they have to do is say, ‘We want to fight you,’ pay the money and the job is done.
“If they really fancy the job, they’d make an offer, a serious offer. Not like last time they made an offer, and then eventually Callum did accept an offer, but they never came back.”
Smith (27-0, 19 KOs) last fought in November where he overcame a spirited display by Islington southpaw John Ryder, which many felt was closer than the scorecards suggested.