By Declan Taylor
CALLUM SMITH has confirmed he is still working with Buddy McGirt, although the Hall of Famer might be missing from his corner on November 30.
Former world super-middleweight champion Smith will return to the ring for the first time since his defeat to Artur Beterbiev in January when he takes his place on the undercard of Sunny Edwards against Galal Yafai in Birmingham.
However, his brother and trainer Stephen has prepared him for the clash, which was only put to him a few weeks ago.
As such, there has been no time for Smith to travel to America to work with McGirt, while there was no opportunity for the New Yorker to fly over to England for a camp.
And the 34-year-old from Liverpool says he will continue to work with McGirt ‘long term’ despite the pair suffering their first defeat together at the hands of Beterbiev.
Smith told Boxing News: “There’s no split with me and Buddy but I didn’t really know this fight was happening, I wasn’t in camp so I wasn’t going to go over to America without a date.
“Then I wasn’t going to bring Buddy over if I didn’t have a fight confirmed. It’s only just been made now so I’ll speak to him now about the situation for this fight.
“But moving forward it will be Buddy and my brother Stephen, who has helped me a lot over the last few months. I’ll be doing bits with the both of them but there’s no split from Buddy, it’s just circumstance.
“Buddy might be in the corner for this one still, I’ll see whether it’s worth bringing him over or not. There’s no decision made on that yet.”