England’s Callum Smith has issued a statement after his lopsided decision loss to Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez over the weekend.
Smith and Canelo met inside the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas on Saturday night, with Smith’s WBA and The Ring super-middleweight titles on the line, and the vacant WBC super-middleweight strap also up for grabs. Despite towering over Alvarez at 168 pounds, and being hailed as one of the Mexican’s toughest tests of late, Smith was ultimately comprehensively thumped en route to a unanimous decision loss.
After the fight, which reaffirmed Canelo as one of boxing’s pound-for-pound kings and its boldest champion, Smith took to Instagram to issue a classy statement.
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“Thanks for all your support over the last week,” Smith, who had never been beaten previously, wrote. “Not the result I wanted and losing for the first time is a tough pill to swallow. I had a dream of becoming a World Champion and was lucky enough to achieve that. To lose something you’ve worked your whole life for is hard. Saturday just wasn’t my night. Time to switch off now and spend some time with my amazing family. See you all soon.”
With his loss to Canelo, Smith now sits at 27-1 overall, and will have to go back to the drawing board after enjoying some downtime over the holidays.
Canelo, on the other hand, is now a jaw-dropping 54-1-2 overall, with his lone loss coming at the hands of unbeaten legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. when he was just 23 years old. It’s not clear who he’ll fight next, but a trilogy fight with Gennady Golovkin seems like a likely option, as do fights with Demetrius Andrade, Jermall Charlo, Billy Joe Saunders, David Benavidez, Caleb Plant and several others.
What do you think the future holds for Callum Smith and Canelo Alvarez after Saturday night?