By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Joe Smith Jr. would love the chance to pick up where Andre Ward left off earlier this month.
If Smith defeats fellow light heavyweight contender Sullivan Barrera on July 15, the hard-hitting Long Island native hopes that victory leads to a fight against Sergey Kovalev. The former light heavyweight champion, who lost to Ward by eighth-round technical knockout in their rematch June 17 in Las Vegas, is expected to return to the ring sometime in November.
HBO, which will televise the Smith-Barrera bout as part of a “Boxing After Dark” tripleheader, also will broadcast Kovalev’s November bout.
“I’ll be willing to take that fight,” Smith told BoxingScene.com during an open workout Tuesday in Manhattan. “That would be a great opportunity.”
Following successive knockout wins against heavily favored Andrzej Fonfara and Bernard Hopkins, Smith obviously wants a title shot, too.
Ward (32-0, 16 KOs), of Hayward, California, owns the IBF, WBA and WBO 175-pound championships. Adonis Stevenson (29-1, 24 KOs), of Laval, Quebec, is the WBC light heavyweight champion.
The 27-year-old Smith thought he had secured an April 29 fight against Stevenson at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. Ultimately, though, Joe DeGuardia, Smith’s promoter, and Yvon Michel, who promotes Stevenson, couldn’t finalize an agreement.
“I would love to fight Andre Ward,” Smith said. “I would love to fight Kovalev or Stevenson, any of them. We’ll see. We’ve gotta get past Sullivan and see what happens next.”
The possibility of facing Kovalev (30-2-1, 26 KOs) intrigues DeGuardia, especially if they could bring the fight to New York, where Smith works as a union laborer when he isn’t training for fights.
“It fits beautifully,” DeGuardia said. “Could you imagine a Smith-Kovalev fight at The Garden? It’d be on HBO, and with the kind of crowd we’d get, it’d be huge. So I would look forward to that. Now they might still say it’s Kovalev versus Smith, not Smith versus Kovalev, but whatever it is, it’s OK.
“We’re looking for a nice, big one in the fall, but he’s gotta get by Sullivan Barrera. That’s a tough fight and he’s gotta stay focused on that fight, which I believe he is. He’s grounded. That’s what I like about him.”
Smith (23-1, 19 KOs), of Mastic, New York, will meet Miami’s Barrera (19-1, 14 KOs) at The Forum in Inglewood, California. Smith-Barrera will be broadcast before a main event that’ll match Mexico’s Miguel Berchelt (31-1, 28 KOs), the WBC super featherweight champion, against Tokyo’s Takashi Miura (31-3-2, 24 KOs) at The Forum.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.