The Big Leagues: Chris Billam-Smith steps up, while Gilberto Ramirez looks up

Despite a combined 68 professional fights, and a world title apiece, cruiserweights Chris Billam-Smith and Gilberto Ramirez would be forgiven for feeling a little uncertain and perhaps uneasy about what lies ahead on Saturday night. 

It is true, of course, that every fight a boxer has will throw up a feeling or situation they have never encountered, yet in this instance we know this will be the case before either Billam-Smith and Ramirez have even thrown a punch. For Billam-Smith, this fight against Ramirez represents a sizable step up in class and is, on paper, a test greater than any he has previously aced. For Ramirez, on the other hand, Billam-Smith, as a respected and a fully-fledged cruiserweight, represents the most physically imposing opponent Ramirez will have encountered to date, both in terms of height and weight. In short: these two cruiserweight champions are preparing to enter unchartered territory, knowing that once there they will have to answer the kinds of questions they have yet to be asked. 

Billam-Smith, at 6 ‘3, will be the first opponent Ramirez has not looked down on, both during faceoffs and in the ring. The 6 ‘2 Mexican is, after all, a former super middleweight and light heavyweight titleholder, so therefore used to fighting men a lot smaller than him in stature. That he now finds himself competing among the 200-pound cruiserweights is not only a mark of Ramirez’s ambition but also indicates just how big he was for the two divisions in which he made his name. Indeed, it was only the great Dmitry Bivol who was able to get the better of Ramirez – at light heavyweight – and this Bivol achieved by using Ramirez’s size against him and by moving so well it never became a factor in the fight. 

Billam-Smith, it goes without saying, will not have the same option on Saturday. Not as blessed as Bivol when it comes to either speed or technique, Billam-Smith is instead the type of cruiserweight to get on the chest of his opponent, aim to gain their respect early, and simply want to win more than they do when things get difficult. He is, in other words, an old-fashioned grafter, someone who has no qualms about working twice as hard as his opponent to gain the upper hand. A throwback in every sense, to fight in the style of the Bournemouth man requires guts, and durability, and a certain staying power. It is also a style built for discomfort; that is to say, a style rugged enough to have anybody moving up in weight, Ramirez included, feel as though they have made a grave mistake if they are unable to contend with it. 

How Ramirez copes with this challenge on Saturday is for now unknown. However, last month he and Billam-Smith met at a press conference in Los Angeles during which they both had the opportunity to size each other up and try to imagine how the fight would eventually unfold. In total, Billam-Smith spent only 27 hours in LA doing media obligations, yet it was enough, he said, to get the measure of the man he is set to box this weekend. 

“It was good to see how big he is,” he said after returning from LA. “You don’t know how he will look because he has come up through the weights, but he’s a decent-sized cruiserweight. He’s not massive for the weight obviously but he was massive for the other weights. The gap is so big between light heavy and cruiser, and especially between super middle and cruiser. He would have got all his advantages in those other weight divisions but not so much as a cruiserweight. He’ll still carry speed and punch output at cruiserweight but he won’t have a height advantage on me or anything like that. 

“He seemed very relaxed, though. He’s like me, not really a trash talker. We did a head-to-head and a ‘Gloves Are Off’ type thing and we were asked about our first impressions and I said he had good hair and he said I had a good suit. I think we’re just those sorts of characters. It won’t be that sort of buildup. But when you look at our fighting styles, I think you can be pretty certain they’ll blend and make a fantastic fight. To people who don’t know their boxing, don’t get caught up in the buildup. Just make sure you watch the fight.”

Such is Billam-Smith’s grounded, everyman demeanour, there is very little chance of him getting caught up in the buildup or indeed carried away with how his career is progressing. As WBO champion, he already has a reward for all his diligence and hard work, yet still he remains humble and real enough to know both that bigger challenges lie ahead and that no champion’s reign is guaranteed to last. 

In this instance, too, he is enough of a realist to accept that Ramirez operates at a higher level than the previous opponents he has beaten in WBO title bouts. These include Lawrence Okolie, from whom Billam-Smith won the belt on that famous night in Bournemouth, and also Mateusz Masternak and Richard Riakporhe, whom he beat last time out in June. All three of those men were decent challenges for Billam-Smith, both on paper and in reality, but each would likely lose to Ramirez, 46-1 (30), despite Ramirez having only boxed once at 200 pounds. (He beat the undefeated Arsen Goulamirian in May to win the WBA belt.)

Not only that, whereas before, particularly against Okolie and Masternak, Billam-Smith was buoyed by home support, there will be no such noise or driving force in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Instead, Billam-Smith, 20-1 (13), will be asked to create his own fuel on the night and during moments when it gets tough and he traditionally turns to the crowd to pull him through he will have to this time look within and remember just how far he has come and what it all means to him. 

This he is perfectly capable of doing, of course, just as he is more than capable of beating Ramirez, but the change in environment could end up being crucial should the fight be as close as we expect. If it isn’t the lack of sound throwing Billam-Smith off during each round, what happens when a back-and-forth fight goes to the cards to conclude a night labelled “Latino Night”? Already Shane McGuigan, Billam-Smith’s coach, has expressed concerns about their chances of getting a fair shake on the judges’ scorecards and it is easy to see a scenario in which Ramirez, by virtue of his activity and certain privileges, is deemed a controversial winner in a competitive 12-round fight. 

“It’s a new experience for me,” Billam-Smith admitted ahead of jetting off to Saudi Arabia. “If you’d told the amateur version of me that one day I’d be flying to LA for a press conference and Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins would be there with me on the top table, I wouldn’t have believed it. That’s what dreams are made of. On the flight over there I kind of took it for what it was and just tried to be grateful for the opportunity. It’s a unification fight, it’s a Golden Boy show, and you have to be grateful for these opportunities, even though I know I deserve to be here. I am very much looking at it like that.”

To fully understand the humility of Chris Billam-Smith, it is worth reading Tris Dixon’s superb account of a morning spent with the cruiserweight champion in Bournemouth. To understand his success, meanwhile, one need only watch him in the ring, where time and time again he levels the playing field with boundless stamina and stubbornness and defies both his opponent’s expectations and sometimes his own.