Joe Smith Jr. it looked like it was fading along the stretch, the chance to be world champion seemingly escaping Saturday night at Osage Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was getting everything he could handle from Maxim Vlasov and was being pushed back with his left eye closing, a cut on his forehead dripping blood.
But Vlasov could not prevent Smith from standing.
Smith met in the championship rounds and won the WBO light heavyweight vacant championship with a majority decision over Vlasov, 115-112, 115-113, 114-114.
Two years after Smith missed the opportunity for a major championship, he won the belt in a fight that proved everything he had.
“It was definitely a close, hard, tough fight,” Smith said in the post-fight interview on ESPN. “I gave it to Vlasov. He was a great fighter. He really did a great show tonight and he resisted.”
With the win, Smith (27-3, 21 KOs) wins a belt part in the 175-pound division and sets up a possible unification title fight against undefeated Artur Beterbiev, who has won all 16 professional fights through the stop. .
At one point, it seemed as if Smith didn’t have a chance to get the title at the end of the night. In the 10th round, Vlasov pressed Smith back, landing straight shots as Smith looked for ways to affect the 34-year-old Russian, whose unorthodox style gave Smith trouble.
When Smith left on the 11th, the power that Long Island, New York, a native, carried was returned to him when he needed it most. According to CompuBox, Smith got 48.9% of his power strokes in the last two rounds and threw 113 strokes in the last three minutes, 35 more than Vlasov.
Smith injured Vlasov and had the veteran about to hit the canvas. However, just as Vlasov was about to come down, Smith hit Vlasov from behind the head, which nullified the turn and gave the injured fighter time to recover with just over 10 seconds left the round. Despite the referee’s ruling, Judge Gerald Ritter gave Smith a 10-8 round, indicating he believed the knockout was valid.
“I think he had his head down and should have been eliminated,” Smith said. “I think he would have managed to stop that round, but he took it off and left it standing.”
Earlier in the seventh round, Smith also suffered Vlasov (45-4, 26 KOs) in the center of the ring, but was unable to find the right combination to score a lap. For most of the night, Vlasov’s speed and activity baffled Smith as he seemed to move forward.
ESPN officially scored the 115-113 fight for Vlasov.
“Against the aggressive style of Joe Smith, I presented the whole fight,” Vlasov said in a statement issued by Top Rank Promotions. “I felt confident of winning and was securing rounds on the bench with the judges. I never felt like I was behind at any stage of the fight.”
But the Russian did not help his cause in the last two rounds. In fact, he was tied in two of the official scoring charts and led one point by the other as he entered the eleventh main round.
Smith’s resistance helped him win the fight, win his first major championship, and organize a possible unification fight.
“I want the other belts,” Smith said. “I want the big fights out there.”