After putting himself in a healthy ranking position courtesy of a ten-fight winning streak, the recently-turned 30 year-old had a decision to make about which direction he would go. The Liverpool fighter has opted to go with the IBF and is now set to face OPI 2000’s Devis Boschiero on home soil next month.
“We have reached an agreement with Stephen Smith’s promoters Matchroom and we are waiting for the date and venue from them for the fight with Devis Boschiero,” OPI’s Christian Cherchi confirmed to World Boxing News this week.
Regarding the date, IBF Chairman was able to go one further and stated to WBN that the fight is scheduled to take place on September 19 in Manchester – as it stands.
“The date I was given was September 19, 2015 in Manchester,” said Tucker. “Also, this eliminator is for the IBF number one position at 130 pounds,” he added.
Smith has just one loss on his record through 23 bouts having been stopped by current world featherweight champion Lee Selby in 2011. Since then, ‘Swifty’ has made a successful switch up the weights and is now on the verge of challenging IBF belt holder Jose Pedraza in the near future.
Upcoming opponent Boschiero, 34, has won 37 of 41 contests as a pro, having held the European belt on two occasions. A couple of the Italian’s losses came against EBU champion Romain Jacob, whilst the third was in a world title challenge against Takahiro Ao four years ago.
