Boxing Results: Dalton Smith’s Sheer Size Too Much for Germain: Three Knockdowns Highlight Dominant

#1 WBC-ranked light welterweight contender Dalton Smith (18-0, 13 KOs) used his massive size advantage to pound out a wide 12-round unanimous decision against #14 IBF fringe contender Mathieu Germain (26-3-1, 11 KOs) on Saturday night in the main event at the Park Community Arena, in Sheffield, England.

(Credit: Mark Robinson)

Smith dropped Germain, 35, three times in the fight, in rounds 2, 11, and 12. He was penalized for a low blow in the 11th round after getting overeager, trying hard to knock out his smaller, weaker, and older opponent. Germain was landing shots at times, but he lacked the power and the size to hurt the much bigger Smith.

The scores were 117-107, 119-105, and 119-105.

Annoyance Visible

Germain spent most of the fight moving around the ring, trying to evade the heavy shots from Dalton, who looked two divisions larger inside the ring than him. Dalton resembled a junior middleweight fighting at light welterweight. With that kind of size disadvantage, Germain stood no chance against him; hence, he stayed on the move throughout, holding and frustrating Smith.

Toward the end of the fight, Smithi was visibly annoyed at Mathieu for not standing still so he could land his big power shots to knock him out. He tried to get the crowd to pressure his opponent to be stationary, which was dumb.

Hearn’s Strategy

The person Smith should be angry with is his promoter, Eddie Hearn, for choosing Germaine from near the rock bottom of the 140-lb rankings at the #14 spot. It’s unclear why Hearn matched Dalton against Germain rather than one of the higher-ranked top five contenders that could give him a true test.

That’s the magical question because Smith didn’t gain any real experience from this fight, and definitely didn’t prepare him to challenge WBC light welterweight champion Alberto Puello, who is a lot better than this guy. He could have matched Smith against Gary Antuanne Russell or Subriel Matias instead of Germaine to prepare him for his title shot. That obviously would have been risky because those guys have power that would have given Smith problems.

Smith is too big to fight for the IBF 140-lb title against Richardson Hitchins because there’s a 10-lb rehydration rule that he would have to abide by. There’s no chance that Smith could make the secondary weight check without draining himself to the point where he would be an easy mark for Hitchins.