Adam Smith: “Cancer nearly killed me, but, in many ways, it’s given me a different perspective on life, and I’m now a much happier, calmer person.”

Adam Smith: “Cancer nearly killed me, but, in many ways, it’s given me a different perspective on life, and I’m now a much happier, calmer person.”

By Matt Elliott

The voice of Adam Smith is synonymous with boxing. The two just fit perfectly together, and one doesn’t feel quite the same without the other. Smith has been working in and around boxing for almost thirty years now, having joined Sky Sports in 1994 just a few years after the channel first launched in the UK. Whether you consider yourself a hardcore fan, someone who thinks nothing about staying up into the early hours of the morning to watch two relatively unknown Mexicans put on a technical masterclass or a casual supporter who reserves their boxing viewing purely for the blockbuster fights, you will be familiar with the distinctive sound of Smith’s voice, with him having called some of the biggest fights in recent history.

To those of us who became reliant upon Smith to expertly describe the brutality of the in-ring action unfolding before our eyes, it came as a huge shock when he disappeared from our screens in late 2022. It would not be until almost twelve months later that Smith would take to social media to explain his absence, revealing that he had been battling cancer, but that thankfully, he had been given the all-clear. For a man who has spent most of his career commentating on other people’s fights, he had just had the biggest showdown of his life, and despite several gruelling rounds along the way, when the final bell rang, his hand had been raised in victory.

As I caught up with Smith via Zoom this past week, I found him in a positive place. The past year, as tough as it has been, has allowed him time to reflect on what he wants to get out of life moving forward. He has parted company with Sky Sports and has recently announced two new ventures, as Director of Boxing Talent at Summit Sports and Director of Broadcasting at the ever-expanding promotional company GBM Sports. Whilst he can embark on these new challenges with optimism and a renewed sense of vigour, I asked Smith just how bad the last year had been. 

“It was brutal. It was really, really tough. During the time I worked at Sky and even during my school days, I don’t remember taking a sick day, and then suddenly you are faced with a life-or-death situation, which is what it turned out to be. Originally, they thought it was a urinary infection, and then they found a huge tumour in my bladder, and I was taken for a biopsy, after which cancer was diagnosed. At the same time, one of my kidneys had failed as well and I had to have a nephrostomy which was a tube into my kidney, and that led to sepsis when I was in hospital, so it was a really scary time. They said the tumour was very big, and it was up against the bladder wall but thankfully it hadn’t spread and they managed to contain it but there was no option other than to have an emergency operation, which is the biggest one they do in urology, and it meant I lost my bladder and prostate and nineteen lymph nodes were also removed. I was then supposed to be home and rehabilitating for three months and then having chemotherapy, but it didn’t quite work out like that. I had something called an ileus, which meant my body, in effect, stopped working, so I didn’t eat for ten days, was fed through tubes, and ended up losing four stone in weight, which was pretty terrifying and at one point I thought to myself, I am not going to make this. They originally told me when I went into hospital the first time around that my kidneys would completely fail within four days, so I was incredibly lucky on that front. I was in amazing hands with the NHS and then through private treatment. I had an incredible team of doctors, from urology experts, bowel experts, consultants, and cardiologists, and my GP was amazing as well. Collectively, they got me through it.” 

Throughout life, the chances are that we will all be impacted, directly or indirectly, by cancer, with the published statistics stating that one in two people will be diagnosed with it during their lifetime. Depending on the nature of the cancer, the physical impact may be evident to the outside world, but what is not always considered is the mental toll that such a cruel disease can have on that person. Given the seriousness of the situation Smith had found himself in, how had his mindset adapted to cope with the challenges he faced?

“I was physically and mentally broken at times. I was burnt out through work as well, and at a point, everything just got to me. It was very difficult but my family were amazing, and I was fortunate to have a lot of support in the hospital and receive a lot of great messages from within boxing, from AJ and Tyson to lower-level fighters, managers and promoters. Eddie came to see me, as did Ben, and I had messages from the Warrens and the Sauerland’s. Everyone was great. Sky were amazing as well and supported me all the way through. I had setbacks along the way, with a second bout of sepsis and then a twisted bowel, which meant there was a race against time to get my chemo done. I had three months of chemo, and then I slowly started to walk again and physically, and mentally, day by day, I started to get my life back together. When I could get up and about, I helped out at a foodbank and supported charities for the homeless, and that makes you more humble as a person. I also spent a lot of time with my family and just realised that I am incredibly grateful to still be here, and I’m thankful for that every day. It also gave me the chance to realise that I needed to recalibrate my life and reset the balance, and I want to be present with my family and my three kids. So, cancer nearly killed me but, in many ways, it’s given me a different perspective on life and I’m now a much happier, calmer person and I think the people around me, my closest family and friends will tell you that I’m now a very different version of myself.”

As part of that recalibration, Smith moved on amicably from Sky Sports, a place that had been a big part of his life for so long. He joined the organisation in its formative years, and having worked tirelessly to help support its growth, he found himself as the broadcaster’s head of boxing working really closely with Eddie Hearn, with whom he has enjoyed a special relationship over many years, as well as the former Managing Director, Barney Francis, with the three of them pivotal in establishing and maintaining Sky as the premier platform for Boxing during that time. More latterly, Smith worked closely with Ben Shalom, and he continues to have a good relationship with the current MD Jonathan Licht and held open conversations with him throughout this process.

For Smith, it is now about giving something back to those athletes who have provided him with so much joy over the years. With the announcement last month about the launch of Summit Sports, described as a 360 service for athletes, in which Smith is a co-founder, he now has that opportunity. I asked him how the idea for Summit had come about. 

“Olly Weingarten (co-founder and CEO) came to me. He’d worked with Ben Shalom at Boxxer, and before that in Formula One and with the Premier League. I didn’t know him very well at the time, but he said he’d heard I was looking to do something different, and that he was thinking about the same sort of thing, so we had plenty of conversations and decided to join forces. Since I was a young boy, I wanted to be a sports commentator, and I didn’t mind what sport, I was just fascinated generally. I wasn’t good at playing it, but I was very good at watching it. Sky allowed me to achieve my dream and I worked with some great people over the years, Jim Watt, Ian Darke, Glenn McCrory, Matt Macklin, Carl Froch, Bob Mee, Tasha Jonas more recently and many, many others. Over those years, I also got involved with some of the fighters. I helped Prince Naseem Hamed, Ricky Hatton, and Anthony Joshua, I wasn’t their promoter or their manager, and I wasn’t in their team, but I was helping their journey from a broadcasting and media viewpoint, and then when I became head of boxing at Sky, it was very much working with Eddie for the majority of that time, thinking about the direction we were heading, what fights we wanted to put on, getting behind certain fighters and pushing them forward, so I very much worked closely with the fighters and I guess I fell in love with them.” 

“The growth of women’s boxing was huge for me as well, and the last show I did with Sky was the all-female card at the O2, which was a fantastic night. Katie Taylor is a good friend of mine, and so are many others, I’ve seen the way that careers go, the things that go well but also what goes badly. I’ve seen the difficulties; I’ve seen the troubles and problems they’ve had and the hard transition into life after boxing, which can be tough. Through Sky Scholars I worked closely with Savannah Marshall and the German tennis player Daniel Altmaier, who came to me when he was ranked about 220th in the world and had suffered with injuries, and it was really tough building him back up, but he’s now top seventy in the world, so I learnt from those experiences and realised I wanted to work closely with sportsmen and women and Summit gives me that opportunity.” 

In addition to Smith and Weingarten, Summit have brought together a formidable team, which includes Duncan Ogilvie, Sarah Gold, Ben Malka and influencer Oakley, giving them a diverse set of skills which will enable them to provide that holistic guidance, with the business initially focussed on three disciplines: boxing, motorsports and creators. Summit has already announced a couple of signings on the boxing front, as Smith explained. 

“We announced the signing of Sophie Alisch, who is a terrific young talent. She is currently 9-0 and twenty-two years old. She has a massive social media following and incredible width to her makeup. We haven’t fully told the story of Sophie as yet but she’s great, she’s a family woman as well and she’s excited to be joining us and to be launching her career as she looks to step up to world-class levels, hopefully within the next twelve to eighteen months and I am really excited about guiding her. We are also working with Neraldo Ymeri, who is originally from Albania, but is based over here now. He is an infectious character and is currently 14-0 with 11 KOs, so we are excited about getting him going. Then we are doing some work with Hannah Rankin, who I’ve always respected a great deal, and helping her with the content side of things, and assisting Raven Chapman with some commentary she’s going to be doing. There are other fighters we are in talks with as well, but we don’t just want to go out and take fighters who are under contract, of course not, but if anyone needs our services or help, we are here. We’ve got to want to work with them as much as they want to work with us, though. It has to be a two-way street, that’s how great relationships are made.”

As well as the launch of Summit, Smith has also officially joined GBM Sports as their Director of Broadcasting. GBM was launched by Izzy Asif back in 2022 and has made huge strides since, putting on quality fights, signing emerging talents, and late last year announcing an agreement with talkSPORT for their events to be streamed live on the broadcaster’s YouTube channel. Smith brings a huge amount of experience to GBM, but what was it that persuaded him to take on this role?

“Izzy reached out and said he’d love me to commentate on one of their shows and to see what they are like. I hadn’t commentated in a long time, so I thought, why not? I’d heard they were brilliant and I went to the show in Sheffield and it was fantastic. It was entertaining, there were some good 50:50 fights, lots of young prospects, and a good female contest and people stayed from the beginning to the end, there was an incredible energy in the arena and the production was terrific, really high-end, and I thought to myself, wow these guys are serious. As a company, they are making some real noise and signing some big fighters, so I am joining them at a pivotal time, and hopefully, I can help guide them in the different boxing politics and the way the different media companies and organisations look at boxing. With Izzy, like Olly at Summit, he is ambitious as well as being charismatic, and he’s got that big promoter in him. He’s come from a tough background, he’s not had it easy, but he’s been successful with what’s he done, and he’s been an athlete as well, a cricketer and a fighter, so he understands that side of it.”

“I also have a really good connection with Mitch Gostolo, who is Izzy’s right-hand man. It’s a bit of a tragic story, as I used to work with Mitch’s dad Lee at Sky. He was a floor manager and worked with the boxers for many years. He was brilliant at his job and a lovely guy, but tragically, he died of cancer and left behind a young boy of seven years old, and that was Mitch. It’s amazing how things happen in life, as now Mitch is in the boxing world, he has a great position at GBM, and he’s a very impressive young man. So, it’s not just Izzy, it’s Mitch as well and the whole team and it takes me back to those early days at Sky with Eddie, and I think we will end up being very successful, otherwise, I wouldn’t have got involved.” 

After several frustrating years as boxing fans, we are now starting to see the announcement of those blockbuster fights that we have long since craved. The emergence of Saudi Arabia as a venue for boxing has seemingly removed the financial obstacles that had previously prevented the big fights from moving ahead, and this has also facilitated the coming together of the different promoters, with Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn being a prime example of this. Whilst great for boxing in general, it has raised some questions about how the changing dynamic will impact the quality of shows within the UK. Does Smith believe that this could ultimately open up opportunities for the likes of GBM to grow more quickly, as other companies perhaps focus their attention elsewhere?

“One of our favourite phrases at Sky was opportunity knocks, and that’s when you have to take those opportunities. Is there a gap in Britain at the moment? Perhaps. There are still some great events taking place, though, across all the promoters. The involvement of Saudi Arabia has changed everything, most notably for the heavyweights, but we are now seeing this filter down. They are doing an amazing job, and they’ve done some fantastic shows. It’s brilliant to see the best fighting the best, but you can’t forget about what’s happening in Britain, and I don’t think they are. I think what’s happening in Saudi provides an opportunity to bring fans back in a massive way across the UK because there is a real appeal to what’s happening within boxing globally right now and we need to capitalise on that. Izzy has the chance to put on some really good shows, but we are realistic. If we can get crowds of up to three thousand, then great, but there’s no point aiming bigger, looking to stage fights at arenas until you have the fighters or the capacity to do so. We are focused on increasing our reach across the UK and into Ireland and yes there is a big opportunity for GBM, alongside the others, but we stay in our lane, do what we do, and make our shows brilliant, the best they can be. We are not at the level of the others yet, but we could be there quickly if we do the right things, step-by-step. That is learning from our mistakes and making improvements, however small, at each step along the way.”

As someone who has been around boxing for so long, and who worked very closely with Eddie Hearn over several years, what does Smith make of the recent collaboration between Matchroom and Queensberry, and did he ever think this moment would come?

“It’s funny, there’s an article from Boxing Monthly on my wall, probably from around 2010 or 2011, and my quote on there says ‘I’m seriously considering bringing all of the promoters together to see if it works. They have to allow their best fighters to fight against boxers from other camps in order to broaden the fanbase. Some promoters won’t like that, but it’s got to happen.’ They didn’t like it at the time, and it was a huge rivalry but of course money talks, and well done to Turki Alalshikh and Doctor Rakan, they’ve done a fantastic job of bringing the fighters together and Spencer Brown, George Warren and Frank Smith as well. Eddie and Frank get the headlines, but all of the movers and shakers have worked to make this happen, and if it’s good for the fighters and the fans, it’s good for boxing. Whilst it’s surreal that they are working together, I always knew they’d get on, but they are different generations. What’s perhaps more interesting is the dynamic with Eddie and George and how that will develop. Ben is there as well doing his own thing, and it will be interesting to where Izzy can come into the mix and make his presence known.”

I saved the final word for Smith. After coming through the most difficult period in his life, it is great to see the positivity he holds for the future and the excitement he has for the next chapter. The opportunities with Summit and GBM come at a time when boxing is thriving, but most importantly, they provide Smith with a new challenge and one he approaches with that newfound perspective.

“I’m excited about where Summit and GBM may go, but I’m more excited just to be alive, happy, and present for my kids.”