Artur Beterbiev defends his WBO, WBC and IBF light heavyweight titles against Cullum Smith at the Centre, Videotron, Quebec City on Saturday night.
The 38-year-old Beterbiev (19-0; 19) from Russia, who now fights out of Montreal, Canada, was an outstanding amateur who won gold at the 2009 World Championships.
The powerful Beterbiev won the IBF light heavyweight title when he stopped Eric Koelling in the 12th round and made successful defences against Callum Johnson (KO 4) and Radivoje Kalajdzic (KO 5).
He won the WBC title against Oleksandr Gvozdyk (TKO 10) in a unification bout and then scored wins over Adam Deines (TKO 10) and Marcus Browne (KO 9) before claiming the WBO title when he stopped Joe Smith Jr. in two rounds and then won against Anthony Yarde (TKO 8).
Smith, 33, won the British and European super middleweight titles and scored good victories against Erik Skoglund (UD 12) and late substitute Nieky Holzken (UD 12) before winning on a seventh-round stoppage against George Groves to earn the WBA title.
Moving up to light heavyweight, he scored an easy win over Hassan N’dam N’Jikam (TKO 3) and outpointed John Ryder over 12 rounds in title defences before losing to Canelo Alvarez (UD 12).
Beterbiev suffered an injury to his jaw that led to the postponement of the original August date of the fight against Smith.
Smith has been inactive for 17 months and with Beterbiev close to 39 years old, this makes for an interesting matchup.
Some betting odds have Beterbiev as a 2/9 (-450) favourite, while Smith is at 13/4 (+325).
Most boxing experts are predicting an inside-the-distance win for Beterbiev.
The WBA champion is Dmitry Bivol from Russia.