Sadam Ali vs. Liam Smith WBO Junior Middleweight Title Confirmed For May 12
Sadam Ali's first WBO junior middleweight title defense will see him face British contender Liam Smith in the main event of an HBO Boxing card in New York.
The network confirmed that Ali will take on Smith on May 12 at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York. The fight will be televised on HBO, marking the second consecutive fight Ali is in the main event of an HBO card.
The HBO broadcast will start after Top Rank wraps up its own boxing card on ESPN with a main event of Jorge Linares vs. Vasyl Lomachenko for the WBA lightweight title at Madison Square Garden. As part of an agreement between HBO, ESPN, Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions, ESPN will have their Top Rank Boxing card start at an earlier time (8 p.m. EST) so that HBO can have their boxing card take place at 10 p.m. EST.
Ali will be making his first title defense since retiring former four-division world champion Miguel Cotto on December 2. Ali won the title with a late rally to win with a unanimous decision in an HBO broadcast that did some of the best viewership numbers for the network for 2017.
Smith became the top contender for the title after scoring a majority decision win over Liam Williams. The fight was a rematch from the April 2017 bout for the interim WBO junior middleweight title, but Smith was overweight for the bout. Even though Smith won after a double laceration to Williams' right eyelid, a rematch was made for this past November, which Smith won.
