By Norm Frauenheim–
He’s the Common Man with a common name. There are 4,791 people named Joe Smith, according to a web site that keeps track of these things for everybody who needs to know. It’s an anonymous name, common enough to be an alias.
Go ahead, tell somebody you’re Joe Smith. Sure, you are.
But this isn’t a common Joe Smith. He has been fighting to separate himself from the everyman tag that was attached to him since 2016 when he followed a first-round stoppage of Andrzej Fonfara with a KO that knocked Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins out the ring.
He showed uncommon power then. He has shown uncommon determination since then, with five fights, winning three and losing two to Sullivan Barrera and then to Dmitry Bivol.
He lost to Barrera in his first fight after the stunner over Hopkins. He lost a one-sided decision to Bivol in his only shot at a significant light-heavyweight title in 2019.
The Bivol loss might have been a sign it’s time to return to the union hall and go back to work as a laborer in Long Island, N.Y. It would have been the common thing to do. But Smith continued to fight, beating contenders Jesse Hart and Eleider Alvarez.
Smith (26-3, 21 KOs), perhaps a late-bloomer in a tough craft, still had some work to do. Namely, a job without a major title is a job still undone.
He’s back for a second shot, this time for the World Boxing Organization’s version of the 175-pound title against former cruiserweight Maxim Vlasov (45-3, 26 KOs) Saturday (ESPN, 10:00 pm ET/7 pm PT) in Tulsa, Okla., in a bout re-scheduled after Vlasov tested positive for COVID in February
“Becoming world champion and hearing the words, ‘and new!’ it’s going to be an amazing feeling,’’ Smith said this week before his bid for the WBO’s vacant crown. “This is everything I have been working for since I was 15 years old.”
About five years have come and gone since Smith did to Hopkins what nobody ever could. He’s 31 years old. He’s married. His sudden prominence in the wake of crashing Hopkins’ retirement party has also created options. The former laborer now has his own company, Team Smith Tree Service. He’s still a working man. A working man’s fighter, too. That’s still a big part of his story, still one of the best in boxing.
An irony perhaps is that he’s pursuing a belt and there may be nothing more common than that in boxing these days. There might be more belts than Joe Smiths. But this Smith might be in a position to claim one more belt if – as expected – he beats Vlasov, who enters the ring within a couple of months of his positive test for the virus.
It looks as if the Smith-Vlasov winner would set up a light-heavyweight biggie against Artur Beterbiev, who holds two pieces to the light-heavyweight puzzle. Beterbiev is considered the best in the division.
Beterbiev scored a 10th-round stoppage of Adam Deines on Mar. 20 in Moscow. But it was a mandatory defense, which is another way of saying it was forgettable. The mostly-unknown Deines had no chance.
Guess here, the determined Smith would. Call it common sense.
