‘I was about to start turning the screw’: Billam-Smith reacts to stoppage win over Masternak

Chris Billam-Smith was getting all he could handle until he was able to force Mateusz Masternak to retire in his corner.

Following Chris Billam-Smith’s tough win over Mateusz Masternak, the British fighter spoke to Sky Sports on his performance as he talks about overcoming a slow start to begin building momentum by the middle rounds.

“I was probably down in the fight,” Billam-Smith told Sky Sports afterwards. “I was probably a round down and I won the seventh and Shane [McGuigan, his trainer] was like: ‘That’s it, let’s do it.’”

Billam-Smith says he was looking to land big shots too early on in the fight which made things hard on himself, to go along with the awkwardness of Masternak, but he ultimately started finding his effective range in the seventh round.

At that point Billam-Smith expected he would clearly take over the fight, but he’d already injured Masternak’s rib by that point which caused him retire in the corner rather than come out for the eighth round.

“I was about to start turning the screw and unfortunately he pulled out as I was about to show everyone what I was going to do,” he said.

So Billam-Smith doesn’t exactly put on quite the performance he had been hoping for, but he scored a stoppage win in any case, and will move on from here to what he hopes will be a bigger and more lucrative opportunity.