STEPHEN SMITH was 35 when he retired in 2021. He ended his fighting life in anticlimactic fashion with a routine six-round points victory in Liverpool (in 2019).
In truth, Smith deserved a far better last dance. But, despite the way it ended, it was a glittering career that included two ABA titles as an amateur and a gold medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. After turning professional in 2008, Smith won British and Commonwealth titles, but the Liverpool fighter had two unsuccessful attempts at winning a world title.
Those defeats, to Jose Pedraza and Jason Sosa, still linger.
“I can’t lie and say I didn’t turn pro to become a world champion,” Smith tells Boxing News.
“That was always my ambition. I gave everything I had to become a world champion.
“A little bit of luck on my side, and I may have done it. But it wasn’t for the lack of trying. So, there are definitely no regrets.
“The one thing that does play on my mind was that I never got any kind of closure on my career.
“It could have been third time lucky, but Covid brought a stop to boxing, and I thought: ‘That’s me done; It’s a sign for me to get out.’
“When boxing started up again, it was on those garden shows, and they weren’t really for me. But when boxing did start up again properly with the bigger shows, I was thinking, ‘have I made the right choice?’
“But at 35, and being inactive for 18 months at that age, and fighting at super-featherweight doesn’t do you any favours, looking back, it was probably the right decision to retire.
“If I had lost to someone I shouldn’t have lost to, it would hurt me more than it does now. I would rather this than that.”
Smith is now 40, and a new career is at the embryonic stages.
Smith is now a trainer, and one in very high demand. The former undisputed world super-lightweight champion, Chantelle Cameron, is among a small but talented stable of fighters. Cameron speaks highly of her new trainer, calling switching to him the best move she has ever made.
In many ways, the move into coaching was always somewhat inevitable.
“I have always lived my life around boxing,” says Smith. “I have always been spoken of as having the potential to be a good trainer. I am able to read a fight quite well. I am tactically very good as well.
“I always looked at it and thought it would suit me well. I do think I was meant to do this. It suits me to the ground.
“I don’t think I looked past my boxing career until it was over. I remember saying to my wife that I was going to retire, but I need time.
“Two years went by, and I just thought that coaching was my next move.
“I still miss boxing, but I thought that was the nearest I was going to get. It’s not the same, but it’s as near as you can get.”
Cameron has talked about how much time Smith gives her and how much he cares about his fighters, and Smith talks with a refreshing passion about the fighters in his care: “I do have nerves, but it’s because of how much I want my fighter to do well.
“When you are in the gym preparing your fighters, you don’t realise the bond you get with them and how much you want it for them. You see how much hard work they put in.
“I love all my fighters, and I want them to all think we are all on the same team. I want them to know I am in there with them. I want my fighters to know I am behind them 100%.”
There is that obvious bond Smith has with his fighters, but it is somewhat problematic being on the safer side of the ropes.
You sense, if he could, Smith would be in there with his fighters. The depth of feeling he has for that flourishing stable is akin to what he has when he has to endure when his fighting siblings are in the ring.
“The only way I can compare it is it’s like it’s been all my life, watching my brothers fight,” Smith says of his four similarly decorated siblings, Callum, Liam and Paul.
“I have always said it is harder to watch my three brothers fight than to fight myself.
“When you are in there, you know what you are looking for and what you have been working on. You can control what happens and have a bit of a say in it. But when you are watching, you can shout instructions from the side and hope it helps.
“Boxing is a sport we all love, but at times it’s brutal and unforgiving, and that’s what makes it so hard to watch when you care, when it is someone in there who you care for. It’s brutal to watch sometimes.
“I pray every night anyway, but I used to say a prayer before every one of my fights for mine and my opponent’s safety.
“I’d never asked to win, but I’d ask if he could help me perform. That was always my saying: if I perform well, I will sleep well.
“I still say a little prayer now before one of my fighters fights, just asking to make sure both fighters are safe and that I give the right advice. I don’t ever want to hinder one of my fighters.”
In comparison to his life inside the ropes, Smith has realised the major difference as a trainer.
“I have got way less time, to be honest with you,” he says. “I can’t believe how busy I am.
“That’s probably the thing that has shocked me the most; how time-consuming being a trainer is.
“I probably didn’t give it the respect it deserves with how busy you are.
“I have put my whole life into boxing. I used to go to the gym and train as hard as I could every session. But with training, one fighter goes home, and then you train the next one, and so on. I also do the runs with them, so I don’t feel as though I get a minute to myself anymore.
“I always thought I would aim towards training six fighters. At the moment, I am putting all my time into it, it’s OK, but I don’t think I could do many more.
“I put a lot of one-to-one time with them. If you do a lot of group sessions, or if you have a lot of different coaches in the gym with you, I would imagine you could train more. But I do all the work myself, and I want to make sure I am coaching my fighters properly.
Bond is a constant theme throughout our chat.
“It’s massive to me,” Smith points out.
“Every time I get asked to train a fighter, I’ll meet up first and have a coffee with them. If I get on well with someone, I know I can go to work with them every single day.
“I have been very flattered by all the compliments I have had since I started coaching, and how much interest I have had.
“I can be a bit picky and make sure it’s a fighter I want to go and help and push them every day. I don’t want any idiots in the gym, for want of a better word, where I have to keep ringing them to see where they are. I don’t want anyone who will be a bad apple in the gym.
“But I am big on the bond with my fighters. I want them to know that we are close and that we go into battle together.”
Cameron can’t speak highly enough of her new trainer.
She has been looking for the right fit for the past 18 months. In Smith, Cameron seems to have found what she has been looking for.
Both fighter and trainer are incredibly excited for what lies ahead.
“I think the best days of Chantelle are still ahead of her,” Smith says of Cameron.
“There are reasons behind the loss to Katie in the rematch. I am very confident in what I have seen already from her in the gym, from the work she is putting in and the tweaks we are making to add to her game.
“I told Chantelle from day one that we didn’t want to change her as a fighter, we wanted to add to her as a fighter.”
Jade Jones, the former two-time Olympic gold medallist in taekwondo, turned to Smith when she announced her intention to move over to boxing in March.
With Jones’ boxing debut fast-approaching, Smith is extremely pleased with her progress.
“Jade Jones is doing really well,” he says. “She is making massive improvements, considering Jade is new to the sport.
“I’m really looking forward to people seeing the improvements she is making. Jade has competed at the top in another sport, and her mentality is amazing.
“Jade is a proper athlete.”
Smith never won a world title as a fighter, but there is every chance he will do so as a trainer.
In their first fight together, Cameron and Smith made a winning start to their working relationship. Cameron impressed in beating Jessica Camara, before her old rival Katie Taylor settled her rivalry with Amanda Serrano with a third straight victory on the same card in July.
Cameron now wants her own trilogy with Taylor, but she has been frustrated previously in her search for it. Her WBC mandatory contender status, though, should guarantee Cameron a world title opportunity regardless of what Taylor decides to do.
However it comes, Cameron will be favoured to once again be crowned a world champion, and the Northampton fighter wants to do it for Smith as much as herself.
“Now I have a coach who is making me want to be a world champion again,” Cameron says of Smith.
“I want to give it to Stephen just as much as I want it for myself.”
It seems that special bond is a two-way street.
