When to watch: Saturday, March 23. The preliminary bouts begin at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time (4:30 p.m. GMT). The main broadcast begins at 3 p.m. Eastern Time (7 p.m. GMT).
How to watch: DAZN
Why to watch: This is the kind of crossroads fight that is worth tuning in for — even if it weren’t the only notable boxing broadcast scheduled this week.
Dalton Smith is the rising junior welterweight prospect on the verge of being considered a contender, stepping up against an opponent whose experience and accomplishments far surpass anyone else the 27-year-old from Sheffield, U.K., has faced to date.
That opponent is Jose Zepeda, a former contender who’s been in three title fights and been in a Fight of the Year award winner but is now, at 34 years old, facing the possibility of the window closing shut on his career.
Smith’s father and trainer is Grant Smith, who also currently works with former undisputed 140-pound champion Chantelle Cameron, former flyweight titleholder Sunny Edwards, and a slew of other fighters out of his Steel City Gym. Dalton Smith had hoped to compete in the 2020 Olympics, but when the weight classes and their weight limits changed, he opted instead to turn pro in 2019.
Smith has gone 15-0 (11 KOs) in the paid ranks and is coming off a seventh-round technical knockout victory in July over a 17-1 Sam Maxwell. Smith suffered cuts above both eyes against Maxwell thanks to heads clashing and also had a wound opened for the same reason in his other 2023 appearance, a unanimous decision over Billy Arrington.
This will be Smith’s third main event at Sheffield Arena in front of his hometown crowd. The other two were last year’s Maxwell match and a TKO of Sam O’maison in 2022.
Zepeda, who hails from Southern California, has fought in the United Kingdom once before. It isn’t a good memory, however: He dislocated his left shoulder early on in a lightweight title fight against Terry Flanagan in July 2015 and remained in his corner after the second round. The road back into contention took considerable time. By February 2019, Zepeda was finally competing for a world title again. And again it ended in disappointment, as Zepeda dropped a majority decision to junior welterweight Jose Ramirez.
But Zepeda bounced back more quickly this time. Even if the next title shot didn’t come until 2022, Zepeda remained in contention thanks to a decision win over Jose Pedraza later on in 2019; his triumph in an exciting war with Ivan Baranchyk in 2020 where the two men combined for eight knockdowns over the course of five rounds; and the first-round dispatching of prospect Josue Vargas in 2021. All of that helped earn Zepeda a shot at a vacant title in 2023. It wasn’t to be. Regis Prograis knocked Zepeda out in the 11th round to seize the belt.
Last year brought another setback, when Zepeda lost a wide decision to unbeaten Richardson Hitchins. Now Zepeda, 37-4 (28 KOs), is firmly in the role of the B-side taking on the rising prospects and contenders who want to use him as a stepping stone. Ahead of this fight with Smith, Zepeda has spoken of knowing that this is his final opportunity and that he will likely retire if he loses on Saturday. That’s often not a good sign when a fighter already has retirement on their mind. Perhaps, for Zepeda, this instead serves as inspiration — he doesn’t want to be rendered obsolete just yet.
Smith, of course, will have his own say in the matter. A victory will propel him into more opportunities at 140 pounds; whether a clash with fellow unbeaten prospect Adam Azim is in the cards for the near future remains to be seen.
The undercard also features a title fight between Sandy Ryan and Terri Harper.
Ryan, 6-1-1 (2 KOs), picked up the WBO women’s welterweight belt in 2023 after it was stripped from undisputed champion Jessica McCaskill, punishment for McCaskill’s loss one division below against the aforementioned 140-pound champ, Chantelle Cameron.
Ryan and McCaskill wound up meeting last September, battling for three world titles and the lineal championship. The fight ended in a draw, a heavily debated decision that some believe should’ve gone Ryan’s way.
The 30-year-old from Derby meets Terri Harper, 14-1 (6 KOs). Harper, a 27-year-old from Denaby Main, is a former junior lightweight titleholder who was part of a thrilling draw with Natasha Jonas in 2020. Harper would be dethroned by Alycia Baumgardner in 2021 and left the 130-division far behind, moving all the way up to junior middleweight. Harper outpointed Hannah Rankin for a world title in 2022 and defended it twice last year via unanimous decision against Ivana Habazin and a draw with former 147-pound queen Cecilia Braekhus. Now Harper moves down to welterweight in an attempt to become a three-division titleholder.
Also on this show: Junior welterweight Campbell Hatton, 14-0 (5 KOs), son of Ricky Hatton, takes on James Flint, 13-1-2 (3 KOs); and junior middleweight prospect Ishmael Davis, 12-0 (6 KOs), meets Troy Williams, 20-2-1 (14 KOs).
More Fights to Watch
Friday, March 22: Albert Bell vs. Jonathan Romero (TrillerTV pay-per-view, $19.99, 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time)
This show, airing from Glass City Center in Toledo, Ohio, has the city’s own Albert Bell in the main event. The 31-year-old junior lightweight is 25-0 (8 KOs) and coming off a second-round TKO win last November over the shell of Jayson Velez.
Bell faces Jonathan Romero, a 37-year-old originally from Colombia and now fighting out of Las Vegas. If Romero’s name is familiar, that’s because he is a former 122-pound titleholder whose brief reign ended at the hands of Kiko Martinez on an HBO broadcast back in 2013. Romero then went a decade without losing, though there were a couple of long layoffs during that period, before getting knocked out by Abraham Nova last July.
And the aforementioned Velez will face Ladarius Miller on the undercard in a junior welterweight match. Velez, a 37-year-old faded former featherweight title challenger, has dropped five straight and eight of his last nine bouts, bringing his record to 30-13-1 (21 KOs). Miller, 30 years old, is 21-2 (6 KOs) and has not fought since October 2020, when he lost a unanimous decision to Michel Rivera.
Follow David Greisman on Twitter @FightingWords2. His book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.