Chris Billam-Smith doesn\u2019t do easy fights, but he does do winning.<\/p>\n
He scored the 21st win of his 23-fight career after 12 rough-and-rugged rounds with American puncher Brandon Glanton.<\/p>\n
They met in the show opener at London\u2019s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, walking to the ring at around 5.20pm in the late afternoon sun, and it was an exhausting, draining fight, but ultimately one that again illustrated that Billam-Smith is one of the best cruiserweights in the world.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old \u201cGentleman\u201d, as the Bournemouth puncher is known, improved to 21-2 (13 KOs), but Glanton was well in the fight for the first two thirds before Billam-Smith\u2019s pedigree and experience at a higher level started to tell.<\/p>\n
Glanton, 20-3 (17 KOs), from Atlanta and a touch younger at 33, gave it a great shot, but as the fight wore on the gap between them started to tell.\u00a0The scorecards of 116-113, 116-112 and 116-112 seemed accurate.<\/p>\n
They battled hard from the opening bell. Both showed variety and ambition in the opening round, working their way inside and hammering away with hooks and uppercuts in close, pushing one another off and letting their hands go again. Billam-Smith cracked Glanton with some good right hands, but Glanton looked unfazed.<\/p>\n
Billam-Smith\u2019s face started to mark up in round two. Glanton was having plenty of success and they shared left hooks and Billam-Smith clattered a right hook into the American\u2019s side at the bell.<\/p>\n
Billam-Smith\u2019s stablemates Caroline Dubois and Adam Azim cheered their man on from ringside, and as he buried two more rights into Glanton\u2019s side, \u201cBulletproof\u201d battled back still.<\/p>\n
The American was applying pressure and marching through some hefty shots. He also walloped Billam-Smith with a left hook before the bell to close the third.<\/p>\n
Neither looked uncomfortable or even keen to deviate from how the fight was unfolding. Glanton\u2019s jab got working in the fourth \u2013 singles and doubles \u2013 and he looked at ease after Billam-Smith hit him to the body with both hands.<\/p>\n
Near the end of the fifth, Billam-Smith connected with some quality work but got clipped by a left hook-uppercut that jarred his head back.<\/p>\n
Glanton touched down after a slip in the fifth, but he maintained his pace and work-rate, with Billam-Smith\u2019s back to the ropes. The former champion landed a good right uppercut in the sixth and moments later, finally, it seemed like a right hook had an effect and rocked the visitor.<\/p>\n
With long-time trainer Shane McGuigan advising him between rounds, and McGuigan\u2019s hall-of-fame inductee father, Barry, screaming his support nearby, Billam-Smith started the seventh well, smashing away with both hands \u2013 and Glanton again slipped to the deck, possibly caused by a commercial on the ring canvas.<\/p>\n
At this point in fights, Billam-Smith is often breathing hard and starting to look worse for wear, and that was the case again as he tried to deter his game opponent.<\/p>\n
McGuigan advised his fighter to vary his jab, but he also felt Billam-Smith was starting to break Glanton down.<\/p>\n
Billam-Smith kept his own work-rate up, too; landing heavy shots with each hand, and Glanton\u2019s punch output appeared to be dipping.<\/p>\n
Glanton\u2019s corner asked him to fight \u201clike he was doing earlier\u201d ahead off the ninth but Billam-Smith kept chipping away, was becoming the aggressor, and no longer spending so much time on the ropes.<\/p>\n
Glanton\u2019s feet started to slow and his attacks had a more one-dimensional attack about them \u2013 and Billam-Smith made him miss by a distance with some uncouth swings. That was the case in the 10th, with Billam-Smith looking far more relaxed as he adapted to become more boxer than puncher.<\/p>\n
That pattern stayed in place for the next two rounds, with Billam-Smith remaining a step ahead and boxing well against an opponent who had represented real danger if CBS had been at anything but his best.<\/p>\n
Billam-Smith is on a run of hard fights. Having won the WBO title from Lawrence Okolie, he defended against Mateusz Masternak on a tough night and then fought Richard Riakporhe but lost the belt to Gilbert Ramirez in a unification contest \u2013 Ramirez held the WBA title \u2013 in October in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Glanton and Billam-Smith were vying for the right to challenge the winner of the WBC title fight between champion Badou Jack and champion-in-recess Noel Mikaelian, who meet on May 3 on the bill topped by Saul “Canelo” Alvarez-William Scull.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier in the week, Glanton had apologized, having said he hoped he would inflict brain damage on the likeable Englishman.<\/p>\n
Whatever differences there had been beforehand, they talked at the bell and embraced, blood seeping from a wound by Billam-Smith\u2019s left eye and both boxers clearly shattered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Billam-Smith doesn\u2019t do easy fights, but he does do winning. He scored the 21st win of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4496,10184,4495,28242,28241,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-52766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-news","10":"tag-boxing-results","11":"tag-boxingscene","12":"tag-brandon-glanton","13":"tag-chris-billam-smith","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114405680279040932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}