Dalton Smith moves on from European title shot

DALTON SMITH will not be fighting for the European super-lightweight title any time soon.

That’s according to the EBU website who revealed yesterday (November 6) that Smith’s fight against Jon Fernandez would not be going ahead. The vacant title bout had been mooted for December but the Sheffield contender was described in an EBU correspondence as ‘still not ready to fight due to injury’.

It added that Smith’s promoter Matchroom wanted to reschedule the fight for February but this was deemed ‘not acceptable’ by the Spanish team. Therefore a new challenger would be put forward to face Fernandez with the winner to face Smith who would retain his position as next mandatory challenger in the meantime.

That was not the end of the matter, however.

In a separate communication nearly three hours later the EBU revealed that Smith didn’t want the position of ‘next mandatory contender’ withdrawing himself from a title shot.

Boxing News reached out to Eddie Hearn for a response.

Smith, 16-0 (12 KOs), has been out of action since his career best win in March when he knocked out former world title challenger Jose Zepeda in the fifth round. A month earlier Smith’s rival Adam Azim made a successful first defence of his European 140lbs belt having beat Franck Petitjean three months earlier to become Britain’s 12^th holder of the title.

Azim was also mandated to face Smith but chose instead to vacate the belt prompting criticism from fans and Smith’s team. Both fighters have said they are willing to face one another but it appears their respective promoters (Hearn and Ben Shalom) want to make this domestic clash as big as possible.

Smith currently finds himself in the world’s top 10 with the IBF but out of the picture with the three other sanctioning bodies. Matchroom are awash with fighters in the 140lb division and Smith will expect to find himself in a big fight next year as he looks to home in on his first world title fight.