Artur Beterbiev successfully retained his unified light heavyweight titles against Callum Smith at Videotron Centre in Québec City, Canada on Saturday, January 13. Montreal-based undefeated knockout artist defeated British former super middleweight champion by TKO, twice sending him to the canvas along the way. The fight was stopped at 2 minutes into the seventh round by the challenger’s corner.
Beterbiev made the second successful defense of his WBC, WBO and IBF belts and improved to 20-0, 20 KOs. Post win he said he wanted to face reigning WBA champion Dmitry Bivol for the undisputed title.
Former WBA super middleweight champion Smith dropped to 29-2, 21 KOs. The 33-year-old native of Liverpool, England came up short in conquering a new division.
In the co-feature, Christian Mbilli (26-0, 22 KOs) of Yaounde, Cameroon defeated Rohan Murdock (27-3, 19 KOs) of Perth, Australia via RTD . The latter’s corner stopped the fight after the sixth round.
With the victory, Montreal-based super middleweight retained his WBC Continental Americas and WBA International belts. In his post-fight interview he said he wanted to fight Canelo Alvarez.
On the top of Beterbiev vs Smith prelims, Jason Moloney (27-2, 19 KOs) of Melbourne, Australia made the first successful defense of his WBO bantamweight title against American Saul Sanchez (20-3, 12 KOs) of Encino, California. After 12 rounds the scores were 116-112, 116-112 and 114-114.
Post-fight Moloney said he wanted to bring world championship back to Australia and fight in front of his home country fans.
Get Beterbiev vs Smith full fight card results.