In-demand Stephen Smith will work brother Callum’s corner

Stephen Smith has been immersed in boxing his whole life, but taken aback at the commitment it takes to be a trainer.

The Liverpudlian, whose services are increasingly highly sought after, is a student of the game and one of four brothers to have enjoyed successful boxing careers. A two-time world title challenger, Smith – 28-4 (15 KOs) as a pro – coaches Charlie Edwards, Ste Clarke, Liv Hussey and Hamzah Uddin, and it’s likely he will begin to work with Belfast’s 15-0 junior middleweight Caoimhin Agyarko “if he gets some fights”. 

“I didn’t really probably give coaching the respect that it deserves, but I prefer to be busy,” Stephen told BoxingScene.

“Having the boxing background, I went to the gym every day and I gave it everything I had every time I went to the gym, and people will tell you how hard I worked and how much I gave to boxing. Now, on the coaching side, you have fighters who come in, give it all they’ve got, and they go home and rest and run or whatever and you’re training the next one and then they go home and you train the next person. 

“The coach doesn’t really get the time to switch off and rest that the fighters do. I wouldn’t swap it for dieting again, but it is definitely different.”

Along with Buddy McGirt, the high-profile Irish star Michael Conlan worked with Smith before deciding to train with Sheffield’s Grant Smith for his return, which will likely come in February.

Conlan and Stephen Smith hit it off before Conlan opted to work out of the Steel City Gym, but there were no hard feelings between him and Stephen.

“I did a little bit with him and he said he wasn’t sure, he hadn’t made his mind up and he was going to decide what he was doing and then I’ve always got on well with Michael all the time, and I think it was more training in Sheffield – he was going to be training alongside a lot of other top fighters in the gym, and I think when it was with me, it was a bit more one-to-one stuff,” Smith explained. 

“I think that was the bit that maybe suited him more, but he’s made his decision and I wish him all the best moving forward. It was just something that didn’t work at the time.” 

Of McGirt, Stephen’s light-heavyweight brother Callum still trains under the American coach and Hall of Fame fighter, but Stephen will be in Callum’s corner when he returns to the ring on Saturday in Birmingham against the Colombia-born Carlos Galvan for the first time since his January loss to Artur Beterbiev.

“It’s more a case of it being a last-minute job,” Stephen added. “I’ve been training him anyway, because he can’t have Buddy [McGirt] over here 24/7, 365. He’s got to tick over, so when he’s here he trains with me anyway. 

“Then there was talks of a big fight next year, and it was, ‘I need to get active; I need to fight’. They said there was an opportunity to fight on this show, only a couple of weeks’ notice, but he’s in the gym; he’s fit; he’s ready; he trains he just said, ‘I’ll get this fight done’, but he’s not going to leave Buddy. It’s just a case of he’ll have this fight with me and then get back on with what he’s doing.”