In the early hours of Sunday morning, UK time, Liam Smith stepped into a Texan ring to defend his WBO light-middleweight title against the Mexican fighter Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez.
Taking on Alvarez who had only one defeat on his record, against Floyd Mayweather Junior, was always going to be a hard task and that was proven to be the case.
The Liverpool fighter suffered the first defeat of his professional career with Alvarez stopping his man in the ninth round.
Unfortunately, the writing had been on the cards with Smith having been floored in the seventh round.
The end though came two rounds later when Alvarez caught Smith with a brutal body-punch from which Smith failed to beat the count.
The defeat, Smith?s first in twenty-five fights, saw Smith remark after the fight,
‘I am very disappointed. Canelo was too good. My timing was off.’
As for the Mexican, who has now won forty-nine of his fifty fights, all talk was of taking on Gennady Golovkin with the Mexican remarking after the bout,
?We are ready for WBC, WBA and IBF middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
‘He doesn’t want to accept.
‘I fear no man. I am the best at this sport. I want to fight the best.
‘About a month ago, we offered ‘GGG’ three or four times as much to make the fight.’
For 26-year-old Alvarez a huge fight now looks to be on the cards, if both parties can get their signatures on a contract.
For 28-year-old Smith it?s back to the drawing board with a career to rebuild.
Smith Loses WBO Belt to Alvarez
