Former 154 lbs. champion, Ishe Smith made his debut at middleweight and returned to the winner’s circle after a one-sided loss to Erislandy Lara late last year, as he soundly defeated Cecil McCalla. McCalla proved to be a worthy foe, who was outclassed over time as he won the first round of the bout, but was hurt badly by Smith in the second round. This struck nearly everyone as odd since well, Ishe Smith is not known as a puncher, ever.

McCalla did enough to not get stopped, but after that round was soundly beaten by Smith who took over from that point, but never should any urgency to close the show even though he appeared seconds away from doing so in the 2nd round. As the fight moved into the final rounds, it appeared most strange that Smith began to back up more and just fall back into counter punching as he let off the gas in a major way in the fight.

The final scores were  97-93,98-92 (x2) all in favor of Ishe Smith.