When they walk to the ring for their fight at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday evening, despite Callum Smith being the more decorated and proven fighter, unusually it will be Joshua Buatsi’s legacy that will be more under threat.
Victory over Smith, ultimately, is essential for Buatsi, but – in many respects unfairly – victory over Buatsi isn’t necessarily essential for Smith.
It was in 2016 when Buatsi became recognized as one of British boxing’s most promising prospects, as a consequence of his success in winning a bronze medal at the Rio Olympic Games. Smith, by then, was an established professional, and in the years since he has won a super-middleweight world title and for a period been considered his division’s leading fighter; he has also lost only to two of his generation’s finest fighters in Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Artur Beterbiev, and perhaps tellingly was considered a worthy opponent on the occasion of both fights.
In recording victories over Rocky Fielding, John Ryder (albeit contentiously; Smith was later recognised as struggling to make the 168lbs weight limit) and George Groves, among others, Smith came to be considered the finest super middleweight in the world. In winning the World Boxing Super Series – he retired Groves in the final in 2018 that was hosted in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – and later fighting Alvarez when the Mexican was widely considered at his peak and the world’s very finest active fighter, he also earned purses that have so far remained beyond Buatsi’s reach.
He, similarly, did so without the marketability being an Olympian offered Buatsi, and yet for all of the many differences in their schooling and careers, they both enter Saturday’s contest carrying a similar, if not identical, frustration – that that a fighter develops when they recognise that their career has stalled.
In the same way that Smith, 34 years old, defeated those considered his contemporaries, the highlights of Buatsi’s career have been deserved victories over domestic rivals Craig Richards, Willy Hutchinson and Dan Azeez. Those over Azeez and Hutchinson came in 2024, making it perhaps the finest year of his eight-year professional career. Yet victory over Azeez was intended to lead to an endlessly appealing fight in a main event against Anthony Yarde; Hutchinson instead later followed on an undercard, and despite him recording two knockdowns during the course of earning a split decision, Buatsi earned minimal acclaim.
If Smith’s career was stalled largely by both an injury to Beterbiev that delayed their contest to January 2024 and then his recovery from his only stoppage defeat, Buatsi’s was first undermined by the effects of the Covid pandemic when he was building momentum, then by his acrimonious departure from Matchroom for Boxxer, and then most recently by the pursuit of a fight with Yarde. It is for that reason that questions surrounding his true ability persist. He has consistently succeeded – albeit often without truly excelling – at the levels he has been matched at, but he has long been considered capable of winning world honours, and yet the vacant WBO interim light-heavyweight title he won against Hutchinson and that he attempts to defend against Smith is as close to doing so as he has got.
If Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn is to be believed (Hearn, incidentally, continues to promote Smith; it also perhaps shouldn’t be overlooked how tense his relationship became with Buatsi and his Boxxer counterpart Ben Shalom and therefore how personal Saturday’s fight potentially feels) Buatsi resisted the opportunity to fight Bivol prior to 2024. But there was also a time Hearn gave Buatsi prominent positions on the undercards of significant promotions led by Anthony Joshua, and when Matchroom’s investment and faith in Buatsi appeared on course to surpass that in Smith.
When aged 31 the undefeated Buatsi should be relishing the peak of his career, despite the strength of his strongest victories, he instead remains a fighting enigma – a 19-fight professional still spoken about in terms of potential, despite two Olympic cycles passing since the bronze medal that in so many respects continues to define him. There also exists the relative misfortune of his ascent coinciding with the title reigns of Bivol and Beterbiev, and the reality that were he to have fought them previously they almost certainly would have represented for him too much, too soon.
Yet in the same way that the time will soon come when Bivol, Beterbiev and Smith are no longer active fighters, if Buatsi is to truly make the nature of mark as a professional that would justify the long-term, wider excitement surrounding him, he will have to defeat Smith and he will have to convince.
Where, against Ryder aside, Smith has regularly been dominant in victory, Buatsi, despite being far from the classic nature of fighter to fight at the level of his opposition, has typically, without labouring, appeared to have done little more than coast to the majority of his most important wins.
Azeez once told BoxingScene that he had reflected that Buatsi had “wanted” victory more when they met as undefeated fighters in February 2024. It has even more widely been suggested that if Buatsi is to fulfil his perceived potential, he will finally do so when matched with the nature of opponent who demands he does – and for the first time in his career he has been matched with one such opponent, in Smith.
Yet if Smith – unlike so many of Beterbiev’s previous opponents – hasn’t been damaged in defeat by the Russian, unless the relative inactivity of 18 rounds in four years undermines him, he retains the ability to not only provide Buatsi’s toughest test, but to defeat him. If he fights on the front foot and uses his significant range and power he can make Buatsi work harder than he has ever previously had to, and in targeting Buatsi’s body can hurt him and slow him down.
It may not prove irrelevant that Smith’s trainer Buddy McGirt was in Azeez’s corner the night of the defeat by Buatsi and therefore observed from ringside one of Buatsi’s finest performances. It may also prove relevant that Buatsi has for even longer been trained by the equally experienced Virgil Hunter – a trainer whose greatest successes have come with fighters at their best controlling the range and pace of their fights.
Buatsi, regardless, will need to target Smith’s body in an attempt to stop him imposing himself. He will also have to show superior speed and mobility to outwork him and potentially even attempt to counter him – there will come a time when he will have to take risks – yet without showing the same spite of some of his more recent contests, to resist spending lengthy periods of a potentially difficult fight on the retreat.
If he is the fighter those most confident in him believe he is – he has regained considerable momentum – then he may just do so, and he may even earn what could well come to be considered the finest victory of his career. But if Smith remains close to the fighter he was before he fought Beterbiev, favouring Buatsi for victory is an act of faith over one built on substance. Smith is the proven fighter who appears to retain influential physical advantages – Buatsi continues to represent promise and potential – and on that basis Smith can be expected to earn a narrow victory, on points.
