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Mitchell Smith – Fighting for more than belts
Mitchell Smith is fighting this weekend. He is boxing for the WBO European title, a belt that in truth doesn’t hold much cache. But the truth of the matter is he is fighting for much more than that. He is fighting for redemption.
Once upon a time the Harrow hotshot won Best Young Boxer of the Year, as nominated by the prestigious Boxing Writers’ Club. This is the same award that was previously won by British ring legends such as Ken Buchanan, Naseem Hamed and Ricky Hatton. However, that was back in 2015. And if a week is a long time in politics, then how long could a decade feel for a prodigiously gifted but wayward boxing talent?
Much water has passed under the bridge since 2015 for Smith. Lost years. Alcohol. Recreational drug abuse. Gambling issues. Extreme weight fluctuations. Prison.
Smith’s story is a cautionary tale of what can go wrong if natural ability and vast potential is not welded by willpower, drive, determination and consistency.
I first saw him live on a sweltering July night in East London in 2014. One reason I love being in London is that one is never more than 50 yards away from an argument. There were a few that night around ringside. Smith was 8-0 at that point and riding on the crest of a wave. East London was out in force despite the fact this was a rare midweek TV card at the heigh of a British summer.
He was boxing a friend of mine, fellow unbeaten super-featherweight Peter Cope from Hartlepool. Cope was a proper fighting man, from a family of talented fighters in the North East. Both men were unbeaten. But they were different. Smith was a brash hotshot getting the big build up by Hall-of-Fame promoter Frank Warren.
Cope was 9-0. He didn't have Instagram. He didn't have a haircut. He didn't have anyone pushing him in the newspapers. All he had was a huge heart, a fantastic engine and a quiet determination to go as far as he could in this most brutal and unforgiving of pastimes.
The then 21-year-old Smith floored Cope in the sixth round before claiming a unanimous points decision, in a performance that underlined his status as British boxing's hottest rising star. The right man won. Smith was fantastic.
We weren’t to know it then, but he was also just five fights away from everything unravelling against George Jupp. Jupp beat Mitchell in a seismic shock for the WBO Inter-Continental super-featherweight title in December 2015. 2015’s Best Young Boxer of the Year had been humbled. And things for him would never be the same again.
To say he lost his way would be the understatement of all understatements. The partying intensified. Alcohol. Drugs. Court appearances and time spent on remand for actual bodily harm and affray in the notorious Wormwood Scrubs.
Tales of addiction and boxing are all too common.
Booze destroyed Benny Lynch, dead at 33 after his career peaked as an unstoppable fighting specimen when he won the world flyweight title in 1935 at the tender age of 21. Crack cocaine wrecked the career - and life - of my favourite ever American fighter Aaron Pryor just as he was reaching his fistic zenith. Ditto Johnny Tapia. And don’t even get me started about the damage alcohol did to the lost king, Bernard ‘Superbad’ Mays.
Booze is the thing someone turns to when life becomes too heavy. A numbing agent that both soothes and destroys. Alcohol doesn't give. It takes. Sleep. Energy. Patience. Pride. Peace of mind. For the gifted Smith, by his own admission, it robbed him of his peak years.
But to his eternal credit he has dusted himself off and is having another run at the big time. He is not drinking now. The ride is back on.
For most people, winning Southern Area, English, WBO European and WBO Intercontinental titles would be a fine achievement. They could sleep peacefully. But the sky really was the limit for the young Mitchell, and so the Londoner will feel he still has unfinished business in the pros.
Mike Tyson – arguably the poster boy for a fighter whose boxing peak was shortened due to addiction issues - once said "I'm getting smart too late and old too soon". All credit to Smith then for getting himself back into this position. Sober and fighting on a PPV card for a title.
He will be acutely aware now that stopping drinking or taking mind-altering substances is not actually the hard part. The hard part is becoming you without the crutch. Learning how to feel without the numb. Showing up without the mask.
And so, it’s back to London this weekend. The O2 no less. London, a place where my old English teacher was fond of saying “the buses are red, the sky is grey, and your rent is 90% of your wages.”
No offence to opponent Arnie Dawson, but my journalistic impartiality is out of the window for this one. I am rooting for Mitchell. What it comes outlandish sporting redemption stories; I’ve been all in ever since watching Alex Higgins famously win the 1989 Irish Masters while on crutches.
It would be wonderful to see Smith do the business on Saturday and then enjoy a logic-defying late-career resurgence in the sport. Listening to him in interviews this year, he is not here to take part. He genuinely believes he can still become a world champion. And what a definitive career reclamation that would be.
The 'Baby Faced Assassin' is 32 now, and with respect looks his age. You see by rights – given what he has endured – he shouldn’t be on TV this weekend. But here we are. If he keeps on winning, he could make a pile of cash during this boom time for boxing but more importantly he may just finally fulfil his destiny, become a world champion and redeem himself after the lost years. After all - to paraphrase George Eliot - it is never too late to be what you might have been.
Watch Parker vs. Wardley live only on DAZN
Joseph Parker and Fabio Wardley fight this Saturday, October 25, to become the WBO mandatory challenger to Oleksandr Usyk. Watch the fight and undercard live and exclusive on DAZN PPV.
