Chris Billam-Smith on Oleksandr Usyk dream battle: ‘I requested Shane McGuigan to coach me to beat him in 2017!’ | Boxing Information

Chris Billam-Smith is cultivating a outstanding behavior of turning his goals right into a actuality.

When he turned skilled, he wasn’t touted as a future champion. But he managed to win Commonwealth, British and European titles.

Final 12 months on the Vitality Stadium in his hometown of Bournemouth, he dethroned Lawrence Okolie to win the WBO cruiserweight world championship.

On Saturday, he defeated the one man to have beforehand crushed him as a professional, outscoring power-puncher Richard Riakporhe at Selhurst Park in south London to defend his world title.

“The child in me who loves football so much – I get to box in two Premier League football stadiums, it’s wild. It was beyond my wildest dreams at one point and now I’ve managed to do two, it’s just crazy,” he informed Sky Sports activities.

However he isn’t carried out with goals but. He believes he can beat any of his rival world champions now.

“[Jai] Opetaia’s a great fighter, they’re all great fighters. [Gilberto] ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez is probably the most underrated champion I’d say. What he did with [Arsen] Goulamirian was fantastic. [He’s] a really strong, durable southpaw, can counter-punch, got fast hands, a really good fighter,” he mentioned.

However that’s what he needs subsequent – world title unifications. “It’s mad. That’s what we’re looking at now. We’re not interested in anything else, really, other than other champions,” Bilam-Smith continued.

Riakporhe was a harmful challenger, however Billam-Smith answered his doubters with Saturday night time’s efficiency.

“They don’t see everything else. They see the [Mateusz] Masternak fight. They see the [Armend] Xhoxhaj fight and me getting clipped and the Isaac [Chamberlain] war and they don’t see the ins and outs of the gym and I can turn it on when I need to,” he mentioned.

“Xhoxhaj wasn’t an amazing efficiency, so everybody backed Lawrence. Masternak wasn’t an amazing efficiency, so everybody backed Richard, however mentally I can swap it on.

“The Masternak fight was difficult, everything around it, the massive high [against Okolie] coming into that fight, going to a smaller venue, everyone’s expecting you to win.

“Nobody actually cares about that battle, everybody needs to see me and Richard. All of the discuss was about Richard. And the identical with the Xhoxhaj battle, everybody’s speaking about what’s subsequent. Nobody’s heard of him earlier than. We’re solely human, you’ll be able to swap off, however huge fights I can flip up each time.”

Regardless of the common-or-garden beginnings of his professional profession, Billam-Smith can now dare to dream of going undisputed at cruiserweight.

If he retains on profitable, he might maybe snare the largest battle of all, if undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk decides to return to his former division.

Usyk has publicly mentioned he would take into account returning to the division he has beforehand unified.

“If he comes back down, that’s wild. I said to Shane [McGuigan, his trainer] when I first joined the gym, we were talking about Usyk, [saying] he’s a special fighter. I was going: ‘You’re going to train me to beat him.’ I said that to him [in] 2017. I think I’d only had my debut,” Billam-Smith laughed.

“He’s a special fighter, it would be an honour to share the ring with him as it would ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez, as it would Opetaia. I’m enjoying my career.

“I am not saying it is a straightforward battle by any stretch of the creativeness.

“What a special fighter. To share the ring with someone like him would be phenomenal. And as fighters we go in every fight believing we can win it.”