When Dalton Smith learned before Christmas that his next opponent, Subriel Matias, had tested positive for the banned substance ostarine in a performance-enhancing drug test, he would have been well within his rights to refuse to fight the WBC super-lightweight champion in Brooklyn, New York.
Even though the positive test was shrouded in mystery, and even though Matias received support from WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman, nothing could now change the fact that the fight, set for January 10, had changed, soured. As challenger, Smith would now see his next opponent through different eyes – smaller, narrower, more inquisitive – and be left in a kind of limbo state, not really knowing what or who to believe.
Despite this, however, Smith, 28, still went through with the fight. He accepted the hand he had been dealt and backed himself to get the job done regardless of what he knew or didn’t know going into it. Should a hard fight become even harder, so be it, he thought. Should the deck be stacked against him, so be it. Smith wasn’t looking to do things the easy way. He never has.
This attitude was evident not only in the years, months and weeks leading up to last night’s fight, but also once Smith finally confronted Matias and dethroned the Puerto Rican in New York. He had, by then, accepted his fate and was prepared to do whatever it took, even if that meant taking the trickiest possible route. Just as he had shrugged in response to Matias’ positive test in November, so too did he shrug when Matias dragged him into his kind of fight in round two and said to him, “Come on. Join me. It’ll be fun.”
Rather than resist, Smith went with it. He joined Matias. He shared his fun. In doing so, he accepted once again that Matias had got his own way, but still had enough faith in himself to know that he would have the last laugh. Better yet, he would have the last laugh by beating Matias at his own game and showing him that shortcuts and privileges only get you so far. “My PEDs [performance-enhancing drugs] are here [head], here [heart], and down between my legs,” Smith would say after stopping Matias in round five. “Take nothing away from Subriel, he was a great champion, but tonight is my night.”
If reluctant to take anything away from Matias both with his words and his decision to go through with the fight, a different story played out in the ring. There, Smith was all about taking from Matias. In the first round, for example, it was his confidence he wanted to take. He did so by being busy with his jab, throwing the odd right hand around the side, and by moving a lot, the aim to prevent Matias from setting and beginning his charge. For three minutes, in fact, Smith was totally comfortable. He outworked Matias in round one, he punched when he wanted to punch, and he had already taken something from Matias, even if that something was as relatively insignificant as a single round.
In a fight of 12, of course, losing one round – especially the first – is not the end of the world. Moreover, both Smith and Matias knew that the first round in a Subriel Matias fight is often just an extension of the ringwalks and the introductions. It is, in other words, rarely a sign of things to come, or indeed all that pivotal in the grand scheme of things.
By round two, the pattern of the fight had changed. Now Matias was closer to Smith and busier with his hands. Now it was Matias who was making Smith feel his power and his strength on the inside. As the round ended, Smith could even be seen offering Matias a nod of respect. It said a lot.
If the first round had demonstrated precisely what Smith needed to do to win, the second hinted at the potential pitfalls of veering away from that style. The same was true of round three, which turned out to be a more physical and messier round than the second. In this round, the third, Smith was properly sucked in and was now very much fighting Matias’ kind of fight. This meant plenty of exchanges up close and plenty of holding, too. Gone were the stiff jabs and straight shots we saw from Smith in round one, as suddenly he lacked the space and time to create openings for those kinds of punches. Instead, distance had been taken from him and his rhythm had been interrupted by Matias. Even in moments when Smith tried to get back to it – creating distance, pumping out the jab, following it with a cross – Matias was now quick to get close, smother him, and stop him.
As for Matias’ own work in that round, it was typically sloppy but effective. Punches were often looped and seldom thrown straight and the combinations he put together were seemingly thought up on the spot and not the sort any young boxer would be taught during their first week in a boxing gym. Still, nobody could doubt their impact. In fact, as they closed out round three, Matias’ ability to punch from odd angles appeared to confuse and fluster Smith in an exchange and one couldn’t help but wonder if the Brit was starting to now feel the pace.
That concern only grew in round four. In that round Matias was again active and was again employing that off-kilter rhythm few can comprehend or match. He landed a big right uppercut inside early on and followed that shot by marching forward and waving his hands at whatever bits of Smith were available. In response, Smith, sensing an opening, cracked Matias with a wild right and then a left hook. Both punches landed flush and showed that the challenger was still quite happy to trade with Matias. They also showed that his cleaner, crisper punching could pay dividends against a man who was throwing on a whim rather than with any real thought.
Even so, it was exhausting. Matias’ approach was exhausting – to execute, to observe – and the same can be said of Smith’s approach, which required him sticking with Matias and attempting to outpunch, if not outwork, him. It was no surprise, therefore, that both boxers displayed signs of fatigue at the end of round four. Already the fight had become a gruelling, damaging one. Already it seemed unlikely that it would go the distance.
Little did we know, however, that Smith’s steely defiance and determination to stand his ground would bring about an end to the fight in the very next round: the fifth. Until it did, we had to first watch Smith be led around the ring by Matias, and fall into clinches, and lean into his opponent for a prolonged period against the ropes. There, at closer quarters, he was still able to land well to the body, and play his part in a thrilling round, but it wasn’t until Smith was able to detach himself from Matias that everything fell into place for the Sheffield man.
In the middle of the ring again, where he wanted to be, Smith connected with three straight rights; each one thrown slightly quicker than the one before, and each one doing more damage than the one before. They were in fact thrown staggered, in a stop-start sequence, and during the throwing of them it was as if time had stopped, or at least slowed.
All of a sudden, having for so long relied on his toughness to win fights, Matias found that his punch resistance had betrayed him. Three right hands, it seemed, was three too many for the WBC champion. Now he was looking up at a referee for the first time in his professional career. Worse, he heard the referee count and he felt his arms wrap around his body in a protective embrace.
“I didn’t really stick to the tactics,” said Smith, now 19-0 (14 KOs), afterwards. “I kind of got drawn in. I thought, ‘You know what? I’ve taken your best shots. You can’t beat me. I’m going to beat you at your own game.’ I just thought, ‘Stick it out, persevere, and I’m going to get to you.’”
While some may have advised him not to, Smith went through with the fight, let pride overrule his game plan, and was then unwavering in his belief that he could do to Subriel Matias what Subriel Matias had done to so many others. From first bell to the finish, he was only ever cool, calm and confident in the ring. He brought to a gunfight not only bigger guns but performance-enhancing shrugs.
