Professional Career
Smith turned professional in 1988 and fought the majority of his fights in Oklahoma and other Midwest states, under his birth name and other boxing aliases. In the article, Smith explained that fighting under assumed names "is what we needed to do, to get paid", and was also quoted as saying: "None of my fights are fixed. I just don't like getting hurt, and I'm not going to risk my brain and my kids to prove anything."
Among his notable fights, Smith lost to Jesse James Leija, Julio César Chávez, and Jorge Páez. The fight with Paez was the subject of a 2004 FBI investigation against promoter Bob Arum for fight fixing.
Read more about this topic: Verdell Smith
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or career:
“Never be intimidated when you deal with men. Curse, don’t cry.”
—Anonymous, U.S. professional woman. As quoted in Aspirations and Mentoring in an Academic Environment, ch. 4, by Mary Niles Maack and Joanne Passet (1994)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)