Shane McGuigan suggests that Richard Riakporhe should focus on fighting one of the other top cruiserweights rather than Chris Billam-Smith.
Over the weekend, McGuigan trained Billam-Smith (18-1, 12 KOs) to a hard-fought majority decision win over Lawrence Okolie, the biggest victory of the 32-year-old’s career. The bout took place in front of a crowd of 15,000 at the Vitality Stadium in Bournemouth.
All three boxers – Billam-Smith, Okolie, and Riakporhe – are signed to Boxxer and Sky. Riakporhe previously defeated Billam-Smith in a 10-round split decision four years ago and is calling for a rematch.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Riakporhe expressed his desire to fight Billam-Smith: “That’s big and that’s how we kind of envisioned the rematch, on that stage, at that level. And what better time? The time is now. Why not?”
However, McGuigan has his sights set on a much bigger name and one that could check off another item on Billam-Smith’s list of achievements.
When speaking to Boxing News, McGuigan refers to Riakporhe and says: “Why aren’t you going after [Arsen] Goulimirian? Why weren’t you going after Lawrence Okolie? It took Chris Billam-Smith to beat Okolie for him to go cool, I beat you in the first fight. Fight Lawrence or fight Goulimirian or fight [Jai] Opetaia.”
“Fight one of them! You’re not going to get the Badou Jack fight. Badou Jack’s waiting for Canelo and if he’s waiting for Canelo [then] CBS should get the Canelo fight! I’m not even joking. We won’t go to Guadalajara, we’ll maybe go to Vegas.”
After taking a break, Billam-Smith’s immediate future may involve a rematch with Okolie, who has a clause in his contract. Billam-Smith says he expects Okolie to want the rematch, stating: “He’s a proud man, he’s a winner at heart and I think that [rematch] makes sense to him and why wouldn’t you. You’ve got a world title opportunity again.”
For Billam-Smith, fighting at the Vitality Stadium was a dream come true, and now he is eyeing the next big goal: fighting in Vegas. “Unfortunately, no American cruiserweights [with] world titles over there at the moment,” he says. “There was talk of a Mexican [Canelo] coming up to cruiserweight once who does good tickets in Vegas! I think Vegas would be another bucket list thing.”
Recently, Canelo had planned to fight Ilunga Makabu at cruiserweight, but the fight never materialized. After his loss to Dmitry Bivol in May 2022, Canelo is pursuing a rematch with Bivol in September.