Cruiserweight Carnage at Zuffa Boxing 07 Saturday

Chris Billam-Smith and Ryan Rozicki delivered a Fight of the Year contender on Saturday at Zuffa Boxing 07. Photo: Ed Mulholland, Zuffa Boxing 07
Chris Billam-Smith and Ryan Rozicki delivered a Fight of the Year contender on Saturday at Zuffa Boxing 07. Photo: Ed Mulholland, Zuffa Boxing
by Gayle Falkenthal, Boxing Editor

What To Know

  • At Zuffa Boxing 07 in Bournemouth, England on Saturday, two cruiserweight fights delivered drama and hard-hitting action with both ending in TKO wins.
  • Chris Billam-Smith and Ryan Rozicki punished each other for seven rounds, with Rozicki’s corner finally stopping the fight to give hometown fighter CBS the victory.
  • In the co-main event, Chev Clarke survived three knockdowns to turn around and stop Jack Massey in a wild turnaround.

Chris Billam-Smith and Ryan Rozicki delivered the most blistering, brutal rounds of boxing you’ll ever see in the main event of Zuffa Boxing 07 at the Bournemouth International Centre in Bournemouth, England. It was so punishing that it became almost too difficult to watch.

Both men refused to yield to some of the hardest shots imaginable, but neither man could score a knockdown after 18 minutes of straight carnage. With Rozicki taking the worst of it, his team mercifully decided to pull him from the fight after six rounds, giving Billam-Smith a hard-earned victory.

Chris Billam-Smith met fire with fire against Ryan Rozicki. Photo: Ed Mulholland, Zuffa Boxing 07
Chris Billam-Smith met fire with fire against Ryan Rozicki. Photo: Ed Mulholland, Zuffa Boxing

After the fight, promoter Dana White said he insisted both Billam-Smith and Rozicki be sent from the ring to the hospital, with instruction to take both men from Bournemouth to London (approximately 100 miles) for medical attention if there were any significant injuries. “In 30 years with the UFC, we’ve never had a death or serious injury. It’s important to me to keep that run alive,” observed White.

White said he was relieved when Rozicki’s corner stopped the bout. “I couldn’t see him quitting.”

At the time the fight was stopped, Billam-Smith was ahead on the scorecards 69-63, 68-64, and 68-64. Rosicki was docked a point for intentional headbutting in round 2.

Ryan Rozicki Earns Respect For His Performance

Ryan Rozicki tested Chris Billam-Smith's chin early in their bout Saturday. Photo: Ed Mulholland, Zuffa Boxing 07
Ryan Rozicki tested Chris Billam-Smith’s chin early in their bout Saturday. Photo: Ed Mulholland, Zuffa Boxing

Rozicki is an all-action fighter with impressive power, but something of a porous defense. He’s willing to eat a shot to land a shot, a cruiserweight Brandon Rios. For that reason, he’s complained that he has trouble getting decent matchups.

Enter Billam-Smith, who was willing to take on Rozicki to earn a title fight opportunity against Jai Opetaia. Billam-Smith also has plenty of power, but he showed a tough chin as Rozicki came at him. The redheaded Nova Scotia native resembles the cybervillain in the movie “Terminator 2” with his threatening determination.

The first three rounds were a fast-paced exchange. A cut opened up early over Rozicki’s left eye. Then, the right eye. Blood began coming from his nose. Billam-Smith was evading many of the shots but not all of them.

The fight would have ended in the third round for any other opponent than Rozicki when Billam-Smith landed this vicious right to the chin.

But Rozicki has never suffered a knockdown, and that record stayed perfect even after taking punches that would have stopped a mortal man.

Billam-Smith’s trainer Shane McGuigan admitted it was a hard fight for him to watch from the corner, but he thought the fight would be over in the third round. “Chris sort of nullified and stood with him. He took far too many punches, but then started get his own shots off, and I think when you could see the energy pouring out of Rosicki, that’s when he was at his most vulnerable.”

But the fight carried on for three more rounds at nearly the same pace, but Rozicki’s power was started to wane. He said prior to the fight he needed to win in the first three rounds.

Momentum was now on Billam-Smith’s side, and round by round he was winning on the scorecards. Surely he must have wondered what it would take to stop Rozicki. It took an assist from the corner.

As cutman Carlos Vargas worked to control the damage after the seventh round, Rosicki’s team did right by Rosicki and stopped the fight after seven rounds.

Rosicki would have gone out and finished the fight, and perhaps even scored a decision win, but at tremendous cost. Both men immediately left the ring to receive medical attention.

Billam-Smith’s trainer Shane McGuigan spoke after the win. He seems stunned by what he’d witnessed.

“I’ve never seen a puncher like that guy in my life. I mean, Chris has been in my gym nine years, but the power that guy possesses,” marveled McGuigan. “He’s wide open, throwing bombs when he’s getting caught with absolutely peak shots.”

McGuigan admitted it was hard for him to witness. “As a friend, as a coach, it was horrible to sit there and watch. But at the same time he did exactly what he had to do, and he stayed patient. He was tired in there. He’d been out of the ring a long time. There’s definitely some ring rust there, but you know he outlasted an extremely, extremely tough man.”

Billiam-Smith managed to neutralize a big puncher in Richard Riakporhe with a smart gameplan, and he did the same in his last fight against Brandon Glanton. This time, it took a tough chin and plenty of determination to get past the onslaught from Rozicki, aided by his own return fire. If his effort didn’t earn him the fight with Zuffa’s cruiseweight champion Jai Opetaia, nothing will.

Chev Clarke Gets Off The Deck For Comeback TKO Win

Chev Clarke unloads an unexpected money punch against Jack Massey. Photo: Ed Mulholland, Zuffa Boxing 07
Chev Clarke unloads an unexpected money punch against Jack Massey. Photo: Ed Mulholland, Zuffa Boxing

It seemed the co-main event would end early in a stoppage win for former world title challenger and ex-European and Commonwealth champion Jack “One Smack” Massey. Former 2020 Team GB Olympian and former British cruiserweight champion Chev “C4” Clarke had other plans.

Massey (23-4, 13 KOs) drilled Clarke with a hard right hand one minute into the fight. He wasn’t able to stop Clarke, but it seemed like the damage was done. Clarke was still on wobbly legs in round two, but he carried on. Massey dropped him again with a clubbing right hand in the fourth round, and Clarke seemed cooked.

But give it to Clarke (12-2, 9 KOs) who bit down on the mouthpiece and carried on, refusing to give him on himself. He fought well in the fifth round, landing a solid body shot, and hit Massey hard enough to knock his mouthpiece off in the sixth round.

Clarke hit pay dirt when he landed a hard right hook to the head of Massey as the third shot of a combination, dropping Massey hard on the deck a minute into the seventh round. Massey got to his feet, but Clarke had two minutes to work with and would not make the same mistake Massey did. He swarmed Massey, throwing every hard shot he could, forcing referee Bob Williams to step in at 1:24 of the round.

Massey was well ahead on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage.

Asked after the fight about surviving the two knockdowns, Clarke didn’t seem to remember the second knockdown in the fourth round, still buzzed from the rough fight. How did he manage to survive and win?

“I came from nothing, man. When you come from nothing, you have something to fight for,” said Clarke, who was far more disturbed about the missing British flag on his fight kit, which he meant to wear along with the Jamaican flag.

“I pictured it. I manifested it, I dare say so. Manifestation works. Faith works,” said Clarke, who said he’d take on anyone in his next bout. The Arsenal fan said he missed the team’s victory parade as winners of the Premier League because he was in training camp. Of his victory, he said, “This is my parade!”

No Final Bells on Undercard

The matchup between middleweights Lee Cutler of Bournemouth (16-2, 8 KOs)  and Aaron Sutton (19-3, 3 KOs) ended in a third-round TKO win for Cutler, but not in the way he would have preferred.

Cutler was landing well to the body of Sutton. In the third round, he scored a knockdown with a hook to the back of Sutton’s shoulder. Sutton crashed to the canvas, visibly injured with what appeared to be a dislocated shoulder, and the fight was over. Cutler was dismayed but conceded that he would take a win by any means necessary.

In his previous fight in April 2025 against Sam Eggington, Cutler was initially ruled the loser after an alleged headbutt left Eggington cut and unable to continue. Replay later showed that a punch caused the cut and, despite a rematch being ordered, Eggington opted out of it.

Stevie “The Hitman” McKenna of Ireland (16-1, 15 KOs) only needed one round to stop “The Comeback Kid” Casey James Streeter of Portland, Maine (15-3-2, 6 KO) in their middleweight bout.

The older brother of Aaron McKenna, Stevie McKenna hopes to join his brother on the upcoming Zuffa Boxing 10 card in Dublin.

Sam Hickey of Scotland (5-0, 2 KOs) apologized to his fans who traveled from Scotland to Bournemouth, only to see him take out Todd Tompkins of Birmingham (4-1) in the second round of their middleweight bout.

Hickey and Chev Clarke received the card’s performance bonuses for their efforts.

On the early undercard, two-time Olympic bronze medalist Ivan Dychko of Kazakhstan (16-1, 14 KOs) waltzed his way through a lackluster effort against last-minute opponent Harvey Dykes of England (7-1-1). Dychko’s resume should have led to a blowout against the 30-year-old full-time trash collector Dykes.

Credit to Dykes for putting up enough of an effort to lose by split decision. Scores were 97-92 twice for Dychko, 95-94 for Dykes, who was knocked down after losing his balance in round one, but was not hurt.