With the months of September and October targeted for the first round of the World Boxing Super Series, it was clear that date and venue announcements would start coming in soon. Indeed, we now have two, one in each division. Callum Smith and Erik Skoglund will meet September 16th in England while Mairis Briedis will take on Mike Perez on September 30th in Latvia.
Callum Smith (22-0, 17 KOs), 27, will be fighting at home in Liverpool. Despite both the presence of WBA belt holder George Groves and the fact that Smith has yet to step up to world level, he is many people’s favorites in the tournament on his potential as a prospect. Smith last fought in December, stopping Luke Blackledge in the tenth round of their British title fight. As the number two seed behind Groves, Callum chose to meet Erik Skoglund in the first round over Avni Yildirim and Rob Brant.
Erik Skoglund (26-0, 12 KOs) is a 26 year old Swedish light heavyweight who will be dropping down to super middleweight for the first time in this fight. Skoglund is a former European titlist and has a slew of wins over a mix of Euro level fighters and old names who will be stepping up here big against the obvious talents of Callum Smith. This really is a good matchup of European prospects emerging onto the world scene.
In the cruiserweight field, 32 year old WBC titlist Mairis Briedis (22-0, 18 KOs) will also have homefield advantage in his native Latvia. Briedis won his belt in April by wide decision over longtime division titleholder Marco Huck in Germany. He also holds a really good win over Olanrewaju Durodola. Briedis is legitimately one of the top couple cruiserweights in the world and is definitely a realistic winner over the rest of the absolutely loaded field. As the third seed in the tournament, Briedis chose to meet Mike Perez in the first round over Dimitry Kudryashov.
Mike Perez (22-2-1, 14 KOs), a 31 year old Cuban refugee based out of Ireland, was a rising heavyweight prospect until his 2013 fight with Magomed Abdusalamov. Perez won that fight easily, but the battering he put on that night coupled with the NY State Athletic Commission’s questionable decision making left Abdusalamov permanently brain damaged. Perez is 2-2-1 since that night, just not looking like mentally the same fighter. In June, Perez dropped to cruiserweight for the first time and looked physically great. His opponent that night did not try to win, however, making it impossible to have assessed him properly at the weight.
