Thursday, Jan. 8, 2004 | 10:07 a.m.
As recently as two years ago, Ishe Smith was living with his expectant wife at a friend's house and sleeping on the floor.
It was hot, it was uncomfortable and he figured it was time to give up on his boxing career.
"I said to her, 'I'm going to get a job,' " Smith said. "But she said, 'No, you're not. You need to stay focused on boxing. You're going to be a world champion some day.' "
Embolden by his wife's confidence, Smith kept his sights on the prize, latched onto a respected management team and is, today, within hailing distance of his family's goal. When he fights Randall Bailey Jan. 15 in California on the Showtime cable network, he will be within a victory or two of earning a legitimate title shot.
Smith, 25, is on track to become the first fighter born and raised in Las Vegas to become an acknowledged world champion.
"I'm carrying the torch for Las Vegas," he said this week at a rental home in Summerlin, where he is staying in preparation for his fight with Bailey at the Chumash Indian Casino in Santa Ynez. "It is a great city and I love it, and it would be a great thrill to bring a title back home."
Smith's welterweight boxing career has advanced from local amateur star to occasional fights as a professional at the Orleans to where he's appearing on the prestigious Showtime network for a third successive fight. He's 13-0 with seven knockouts and in the capable hands of promoter Gary Shaw, adviser Shelly Finkel and manager Mike Levy.
They're as faithful as Smith's wife, Latoya, when it comes to his boxing career and they collectively feel he has what it takes to not only get past an experienced, solid opponent in Bailey but take the additional needed steps beyond.
A religious, relatively soft-spoken man, Smith takes none of this for granted.
"I'd almost given up on boxing," he said, thinking back to when fights were hard to come by and his sphere of influence was very much limited. "I've lived through some rough times and I couldn't have pictured where I am today two years ago.
"I feel I've traveled a rough road to get this far."
He laments that he never knew his father -- "I wouldn't even know what he looks like" -- and that he veered from the straight and narrow of his religious beliefs, at least for a short time.
"I'm grateful, man," he said. "My wife is so supportive that she helped me turn my life around."
A back-alley incident in which he was playing craps with a man he considered a trusted acquaintance made a deep impact on his psyche.
"All of a sudden he pulls out a gun and puts it to my head," Smith said. "He asked for my money and I gave it to him. I realized then that I was within a moment of being dead, that there wouldn't be any more Ishe Smith.
"I also realized then and there that God has a greater purpose for my life, that He blessed me with boxing ability and that I'm going to make it."
Of course he has had to win his fights in the ring to keep his goal alive, and Bailey will be his most formidable challenge. A former minor champion, Bailey is 27-3 with 26 knockouts and has faced a number of tough competitors, including Carlos Gonzalez, Ener Julio, Diosbelys Hurtado and DeMarcus Corley.
Smith is in the midst of a nice run against comparatively difficult opponents such as Sal Lopez, Sam Garr and the previously undefeated David Estrada. Showtime has found his performances sufficiently impressive to keep bringing him back and stepping up the competition.
"I've been told I'm just about the only prospect out there who will step up and fight some 'name' guys, and we all know Showtime isn't going to bring a fighter back if all he can produce is lackluster fights," Smith said. "But it goes back to what I said to Gary Shaw when I signed with him, and that's that I don't want to be babied."
Smith was well-known within the local boxing community as an amateur, compiling a record of 100-17 and making a challenge for the 1996 U.S. Olympic team. He regrets that he didn't make it through the U.S. Olympic Trials, just as he regrets the recent closing of the gym where he honed his skills as a youngster.
"It's a real disappointment to me," he said of the Golden Gloves gym closing last month after a dispute between its adult caretakers. "A bunch of egos got in the way of their common sense and it might lead to amateur boxing in Las Vegas going down the tubes.
"I know I wouldn't be where I am today without the Golden Gloves gym and (the late) Hal Miller."
Smith -- whose first name, and that of his 2-year-old son, is pronounced e-shay -- was Miller's favorite young fighter and did what he could for Smith as the young man frequented the gym, eventually as a student from Durango High School.
After he turned pro, Smith was winning his fights but doing it quietly, failing to garner much in the way of publicity or attention. Oddly, a turning point for him came as a result of working as a sparring partner for a pair of world champions, Fernando Vargas and Shane Mosley.
"I doubt if there's ever been a fighter who got so much publicity for being a sparring partner," Smith said, referring to Vargas, in particular, telling every reporter he could find that Smith was a gem in the making.
Having worked with an outright slugger in Vargas and a strong, swift attacker in Mosley, Smith feels he can't get hit any harder or be surprised by anything he may see in the ring during the course of his own fights.
"Those guys can punch," he said of dealing with Vargas and Mosley on a daily basis, plus sparring as he does now with a decent puncher in James Crayton.
The fact that Bailey can punch, too, is therefore only a passing concern.
"I'm not going to let him hit me just to see how powerful he is, but I'm not too worried about his power," Smith said. "He's not going to hit harder than Fernando or Shane; he's not going to do anything I haven't already seen from them."
This is Bailey's first legitimate fight at 147 pounds after spending the bulk of his career at 140, and when he steps into the ring with Smith he'll be in with a very confident fighter.
"I'm smart and intelligent in the ring and I'm going to dictate the pace, just like I always do," said Smith, a noted body puncher who is also fairly elusive. "I can dominate a lot of guys."
He dominated Estrada in his most recent fight, July 31 in Sault Saint Marie, Mich., winning a unanimous decision by 6, 5 and 4 points on the judges' cards. Estrada spit out his mouthpiece during one break in the action, afraid that he was going to throw up after taking an array of shots to the midsection.
"Let the commentators who think I can't punch ask the guys I've fought if I can," Smith said. "I'm feeling a lot stronger, too, so it just comes down to figuring out when to land that last, perfect punch."
He gladly accepted this 12-round fight with Bailey, a 29-year-old from Miami, when Shaw presented it to him.
"Gary said, 'It won't be for a lot of money but this is a great opportunity,' and I said that it's just what I wanted," Smith said. "I'm treating this as a very big fight, a 'statement' fight where I can do some things to help my reputation."
It's also one that moves him closer to every fighter's dream, of a bona fide championship fight. Yet for all the importance of winning fights and his boxing career, he places it in perspective.
"Just because you're a great writer doesn't make you a good man, and just because I may become a great fighter doesn't make me a good man," he said. "I like to stay home with my wife and son and hang out and be important to them. I like to go to church and talk with my minister.
"He has a saying that I'm using this year: 'Too blessed to be stressed.' That's how I'm feeling about my life and career."
It's a belief founded on experience, not all of which came in the bright lights of national TV.
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