Having been knocked down for the first time in his career, Callum Smith has given his views on the power carried by light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev.
Beterbiev retained his WBO, WBC and IBF belts and now marches on to a much anticipated undisputed showdown with Dimitry Bivol, sometime in the summer.
Smith spoke to Sky Sports after the fight and broke down what made Beterbiev, now 20 and 0 with 20 knockouts, so good.
“He’s a bit like my brother Liam, he’s always touching, touching, touching, but obviously his touching is a bit harder.
“His power, he’s stopped me, but up until the last shot I didn’t feel anything power wise he’s more just touching you constantly to stop you from getting any sort of rhythm.
Look, no excuses the better man won tonight, my performance wasn’t the best tonight but he’s the champion, he turned up and didn’t what he’s supposed to do.”
Despite throwing such a volume of punches, Smith reckoned Beterbiev could still be hit himself.
“I don’t think he’s the hardest to hit, he’s pretty readable, whether he felt any from me I’m not too sure, he’s good at touching you and stopping you from getting any momentum.
But he’s a good fighter, a three-belt champion for a reason, I came up short tonight and it’s a hard one to take.”
Should he carry on, Smith has plenty of options for big domestic fights with the likes of Anthony Yarde, Joshua Buatsi and Dan Azeez all in his weight division.
