It worked. Matias never settled. Smith controlled the chaos and finished him in five. That night belongs to him. But it surely also left an issue that doesn’t disappear simply because a belt modified hands.
That approach is built to blunt pressure fighters. It isn’t built to chase potshot boxers who refuse exchanges. Fighters like Teofimo Lopez, Shakur Stevenson, or Richardson Hitchins don’t walk into clinches or empty the tank attempting to overwhelm you. They make you reach. They make you miss. They make you’re employed at a pace that exposes conditioning relatively than hides it.
Smith says he might be ringside at Madison Square Garden later this month, watching Lopez and Stevenson with interest.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Smith told The Ring. “Whilst a fan, I’ll be watching it. That is one I’ll be keeping my eye on now.”
Being present is straightforward. Forcing a unification is harder. The politics are obvious. The styles are worse. There isn’t any clinch heavy escape route against fighters who’re blissful to win rounds from the skin and make you reset again and again.
Smith also said he believes he belongs in those fights. That belief is earned to some extent. He took a risk against Matias that others avoided. He won it cleanly. However the jump from surviving pressure to solving elite movers isn’t automatic, and belts don’t close that gap on their very own.
Right away, Smith has leverage because he’s recent and interesting. He also has exposure because his last fight showed exactly how he survives when the pace rises. If a unification happens, it won’t be decided by power or grit. It’s going to be decided by whether Smith can hold form without holding on.