By Rick Reeno
According to Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman advised him that he intends to order a world title eliminator between 2012 Olympic bronze medal winner Oleksandr Gvozdyk (11-0, 9KOs) and big puncher Joe Smith Jr. (22-1, 18KOs).
The winner would come a step closer to getting a crack at WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson, who defends his title this coming Friday against Thomas Williams Jr.
Gvozdyk had his first taste of adversity on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. He opened up the pay-per-view portion of the Crawford vs. Postol undercard.
In a stunner, Gvozdyk was dropped hard in the first round by the more experienced Tommy Karpency (26-6-1, 15KOs). He was able to recover between rounds, regained control of the fight by round three and stopped Karpency in the sixth round to retain the NABF world title.
Karpency actually challenged Stevenson last September and was knocked out in three rounds.
In his last fight, Smith pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the year and the biggest win of his career.
He was a huge underdog coming into the fight, but managed to knock out highly regarded Andrzej Fonfara in the first round last month at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. Fonfara himself was on the verge of a rematch with Stevenson and took on Smith as a stay-busy fight. Smith decked Fonfara twice before the fight was waved off at 2:32 of the first.
