RICHARD GUTIERREZ vs ANTWONE SMITH

FRIDAY LATE-NIGHT NOTE: The preview below is as written earlier this week but I have added a note at the end about Smith's performance in winning the 10-round unanimous decision tonight — I thought he was outstanding.

Up-and-coming welterweight Antwone Smith takes on battle-tested Richard Gutierrez in what should be an entertaining main event on Friday Night Fights.

Smith, 22, is on an impressive run of form and hasn’t lost in almost two years. He is fast and smart, with excellent hand speed and combinations. In his last fight, Smith soundly outpointed the previously unbeaten Mexican prospect Norberto Gonzalez on Friday Night Fights.

Gutierrez, 30, is the more experienced man and has fought at a much higher level. The Colombian fighter suffered a severe defeat a year ago, though, when he was pounded in the fifth round by the bigger, stronger Alfredo Angulo. In his only bout since then, Gutierrez struggled to draw with Jerome Ellis, a fighter that Smith has beaten, albeit narrowly.

The question with Gutierrez is whether his hard fights, in particular the battering he took from Angulo, have caught up with him.

Smith boxed well against Gonzalez but the Mexican fighter turned out to be rather ordinary, despite his unbeaten record, and he was handicapped by being cut over both eyes.

In his last fight before this, Smith had his hands full against Ben Ankrah, a strong but limited fighter from Ghana, and the crowd booed the unanimous decision.

Smith has the Floyd Mayweather Jr. type of style in the way he turns his shoulder, rolls away from punches and counters, but he had one quite shaky passage against Gonzalez in an otherwise dominant performance and he has never met anyone as seasoned and heavy hitting as Gutierrez.

The step-up fight has been made at exactly the right moment because there is a real doubt how much Gutierrez has left. If Gutierrez is going to beat Smith he will have to do so by keeping the pressure on him and letting his hands go. If he stays back, Smith will pick him off and outscore him.

This is a wide-open fight. Smith has momentum, but Gutierrez is fighting for his career, because if he loses this fight there will be nowhere to go. I think that a lot depends on how much Gutierrez really wants to put into his career at this stage. If he is halfhearted about it, he is going to lose. If, though, he can rekindle the flame he once possessed — I’m thinking of when he rolled right over Teddy Reid and battled gamely for 12 tough rounds against Joshua Clottey — he is likely going to be a bit too much of a physical force for Smith to handle.

Gutierrez is going to get hit quite a lot but he has always shown a good chin and I think he can come through Smith’s classy punches and do well with his harder blows, especially if he can keep his hands moving busily when the younger man seeks to counter off the ropes, which is something that Smith likes to do, ′a la Floyd Mayweather.

This is an excellent prospect-versus-veteran match. I lean towards Gutierrez grinding out a close decision in a must-win fight for the older man, but if he performs at anything less than his best he’s got a problem.

FRIDAY NIGHT NOTE: This turned out to be a ships-passing-in-the night type of fight. Smith raised his boxing to its highest level yet, and Gutierrez had something of an "old fighter" look, a bit like Brian Vera against Craig McEwan. I think that Vera had a lot taken out of him by James Kirkland, and the battering that Gutierrez received last year from Alfredo Angulo seems to have had a lingering effect, too. Smith, though, fought a gritty, very determined, technically sound fight, and even after getting cut over the left eye he was backing up Gutierrez and outpunching him and outworking him, and he well deserved the widely scored unanimous decision in his favour. (Well, widely scored apart from the ridiculously close 96-94 score.) I probably won't be doing a report as such on this fight but I wanted to record how impressed I was with Smith's showing in his biggest fight and biggest win.