CHRIS BILLAM-SMITH can see a path which takes him to a fight for the undisputed cruiserweight championship in 2025.
Despite losing his WBO title to Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez, 47-1 (30 KOs), in their November 16 unification bout in Riyadh all is not lost for the Brit.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman recently said of Billam-Smith, “We’ll certainly rank him and he has the possibility of fighting for a title.”
As things stand Noel Mikaelian is the current WBC world champion but is unable to defend his title due to a legal case with promoter Don King. On December 7 in Canada Ryan Rozicki, 20-1 (19 KOs), will face Yamil Alberto Peralta, 17-1 (9 KOs), for the interim belt. There is a possibility that the winner may be elevated to full champion status if Mikaelian cannot meet the WBC’s requirements as champion.
Billam-Smith, 20-2 (13 KOs), spoke to Boxing News this week about when he plans to return to the ring and how he can land an undisputed title fight.
“The other belts are all going to be tied up for now. Zurdo’s got [the] WBA and WBO and Opetaia’s got the IBF and he’s fighting in January. He’s got his mandatory [challenger] in [Hussein] Cinkara. If he can come through that then I imagine him and Zurdo will fight probably similar time to when I’ll fight in May. That’s what I’m looking at is May time realistically. So, I think the WBC route would be the route I’d love to go down.
“Obviously a very established belt and really sought after. And then [that] gets me back at World level. I mean in an ideal world I can fight for that at the same time they fight for their three belts and then I can fight the winner.
“These things can happen and I believe this loss will be a big opportunity for me to just strip things back, work on some fundamentals which [I] probably haven’t worked on as much over the years because they really focus on my strengths and they’ve got me to where I am. But they weren’t enough on fight night this time around so gotta go back and really polish up on some weaknesses. But yeah that’d be the route I take.”
