By Frank Warren

Keep an eye on Mitchell Smith, a young man angling for the big-time

Just like show business, boxing relies on new faces for its future. At Queensberry Promotions we have a whole clutch of talented youngsters making their way up the bill who I believe will be star turns in years to come.

One of those who excites me most is Mitchell Smith, the cheeky chappie from Harrow who reminds me of the young Naz, full of self-belief, spiteful in the ring and cool as a cucumber.

He loves the spotlight, bouncing into the arena with a big smile on his face, laughing and joking with the fans and as relaxed as if he was popping down the road to do a bit of shopping at Brent Cross. And he celebrates his victories as flamboyantly as Hamed did. Quite a character, which is what the sport needs. He sells a lot of tickets too; both he and his father work hard at it.

Managed by Richard Clarke and trained by former British and WBU World Light-Welterweight Champion Jason Rowland, the 22-year-old Smith has built an impressive 13-0 CV, with the English and WBO Inter-Continental super-featherweight belts already buckled around his waist.

What’s more he can really dig.  Ask his last three opponents, all blasted out in blistering style.

At Wembley last week he took  just under three minutes to despatch of Denis Tubieron with a terrific shot that was a welcome reminder of boxing’s forgotten art of body punching.

Three months ago the fight-hardened Filipino went 12 rounds with Commonwealth featherweight champion Josh Warrington, who like Smith, is a fast-rising young Brit with an unblemished record.

We are crying out for tasty domestic scraps and I’d make Smith and Warrington at featherweight in a heartbeat if the Warrington camp fancy it.

If not there are plenty of good fights out there or the West Ham fan who likes to go fishing for carp in his spare time.

I predict he’ll be hooking a big one soon.

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I thought Frank Buglioni did a pretty competent job at Wembley and set himself up nicely for the delayed WBO world super-middleweight title fight with the Russian Fedor Chudinov, which is now confirmed for the same  SSE Arena on 26 September.

Obviously Chudinov will be a much different proposition to the opponent the Wise Guy defeated in five rounds last weekend, Fernando Castaneda,  a last-minute substitute flown in from Mexico, but the important thing is that Frank boxed intelligently. There was no gung-ho approach, no fighting with his heart rather than his head.

That is exactly the sort of chilled-out tactic he needs against Chudinov, who we know is a smart fighter with an unbeaten record, proven durability – and can bang a bit. It will be a difficult fight for Buglioni but by no means a mission impossible.

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Once again, BoxNation’s cameras caught a classic last weekend with the thundering light-heavyweight clash in Las Vegas between Canada-based Haitian Jean Pascal and the hitherto unbeaten Cuban émigré Yuniesky Gonzalez.

This has to go down as one of the great fights of the year so far, a pulsating punch-up where the action never seemed to stop. You wouldn’t have thought they were fighting for the dubious right to meet universally-recognised champ Sergey Kovalev, who did his usual Krushing job on Nadjib Mohammedi. The Frenchman looked as if he didn’t want to be there – and you can understand why.

I thought Pascal - Gonzalez was a real five-star undercard fight and that  the Cuban just did enough to win although Pascal was given a controversial two-points verdict on all three cards. What a thriller!

There was so much going on.I don’t think there was a clinch until about the eighth round as they just kept trying to knock lumps off each other. If you missed it, I urge you to catch up with it on one of BoxNation’s repeats – it will be well worth it.

 As for Kovalev, he dispatched Mohammedi easily, just as we expected. The Russian slugger always looks so much bigger than anyone he ever fights. As he says, it is his job to hurt people, and he rather seems to enjoy doing it. When he hits you it certainly isn’t a case of from Krusher with love.

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Stand by for another BoxNation belter this weekend. Fists will be flying fast and furiously in Florida where two former Olympians, both unbeaten as pros, clash for the WBA world bantamweight championship at Winter Park’s  Full Sail University.

Rau'shee Warren, the only three-time US Olympic boxer, will become the first member of their 2012 squad to fight for a professional world title when he challenges holder Juan Carlos Payano , of the Dominican Republic, for the  118-pound belt.

Unusually the fight takes place on Sunday, with a live telecast beginning here at 1am Monday.

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The boxing world was very sad to hear that former WBC World Super-Middleweight Champion Richie Woodhall’s father and trainer Len passed away this week following his long battle with cancer.

Len was extremely proud of his son and his achievements and was one of the nicest people in the sport you could wish to meet.  Our condolences go to his family.