Chev Clarke Stuns Chris Billam-Smith with Seventh-Round Stoppage
Chris Billam-Smith walked into the Copper Box as the former cruiserweight world champion who had never been stopped. He left having been dropped twice in one round and halted for the first time in his professional career, undone by a ruthless Chev Clarke who finally announced himself on a bigger stage.
The Londoner had talked about doing “what champions do.” On Saturday night, he backed it up.
Clarke takes control after scrappy start
The setting felt strangely subdued. Only the lower tier of the Copper Box was open, a patchwork of empty seats framing a card that had attracted familiar faces – heavyweight Johnny Fisher, Traitors personality King Kenny and strongman Eddie Hall among them – but not a full house.
The fight started in keeping with the atmosphere: messy, bitty, full of clinches. Billam-Smith tried to establish his jab and physicality, leaning on Clarke, dragging him into holds, looking to slow the tempo and make it ugly.
Clarke refused to be smothered. Once he found his range, his punches told.
In the second round he landed the first significant shot of the contest, a thudding overhand right that crashed into the side of Billam-Smith’s head. It didn’t put the Bournemouth man on the floor, but it changed the tone. Clarke suddenly looked sharper, more assured, his feet lighter, his hands quicker.
The pressure built. In the third, Clarke snapped back Billam-Smith’s head with another heavy overhand right, having already driven home a clean uppercut through the middle. The former champion, usually so composed, struggled to find any rhythm. His attacks came in single shots. His defence started to leak.
Billam-Smith did fire back. Late in the third, he dug in a short right hook that made Clarke stagger momentarily towards his own corner, a reminder that his power and experience still carried threat. For a moment, it looked like the contest might settle into a tense, tactical battle.
It never quite did.
Seventh-round storm
By the time the seventh round arrived, Clarke had been steadily banking the cleaner work, picking his moments while Billam-Smith laboured to close the distance. The Londoner came out of his corner with purpose – and the fight flipped in seconds.
A big right hand crashed home at the start of the round, sending Billam-Smith to the canvas for the first knockdown of his professional career. He beat the count, but the damage was obvious. His legs betrayed him before his face did.
Clarke sensed it immediately. He piled forward, unloading a barrage of punches that forced Billam-Smith into retreat. Under fire and unable to hold, the Bournemouth fighter went down again, overwhelmed by the volume and accuracy rather than one single shot.
Again, he rose. Again, he tried to convince the referee he was ready to go on. His eyes were clear enough, but his balance told another story.
Clarke didn’t hesitate. Two more clean blows landed, and with Billam-Smith looking unsteady and vulnerable, the referee stepped in to wave it off. The stoppage preserved Billam-Smith from potentially heavier punishment; it also ended a proud record in brutal fashion.
The reaction in the ring captured the split opinion. Billam-Smith immediately protested, arms out, frustration etched across his face. Clarke, standing in the centre, simply shrugged his shoulders as if to say: what else was there left to prove?
Promoter Dana White suggested afterwards that the stoppage might have been “a little premature,” a view that will fuel debate among fans who wanted to see whether the former champion could ride out the storm. The referee had already seen two knockdowns and a fighter on unsteady legs. He made his call.
Clarke’s statement, Billam-Smith’s setback
For Clarke, this was more than just a win. It was a full-circle moment. He had beaten Billam-Smith in the amateurs a decade ago; now he had done it again in the paid ranks, and in far more punishing fashion.
“I do what champions do,” he said in the ring, a simple line that matched the performance. “I’m happy. Arsenal won and I won. My training camp was good and you saw that in the ring. I’ll take all-comers going forward.”
The numbers now read 13 wins, two defeats for Clarke, but the bare record doesn’t quite capture the significance. He has just handed Billam-Smith his third professional loss – after defeats to Gilberto Ramirez earlier in 2024 and Richard Riakporhe back in 2019 – and he has done it by breaking him down, not edging him on the cards.
For Billam-Smith, this is a harsh reset. A proud champion’s chin has finally been cracked, his aura of durability punctured in a half-empty arena on a night that was supposed to steady his career. The road back from a first stoppage defeat is always different from the path that came before.
Clarke, meanwhile, walks out of the Copper Box with momentum, a statement scalp and his arms open to “all-comers.” The question now is simple: who dares to be next?
