Liam Smith has known Josh Kelly for years but had never considered him as a potential opponent.
“He was always a welter. I was always a light middleweight,” Smith said in an interview on Flash Knockdown, a Matchroom Boxing podcast.
They have always been a division apart in recent years, with Smith competing at middleweight since 2022 while Kelly moved up to the 154-pound weight class around the same time. But the two fighters are at a point where a meeting makes sense. Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) is fresh off a loss and needs a win to remain relevant. Kelly (15-1-1, 8 KOs) has reeled off five straight wins and needs a familiar name on his record to help him move forward.
So they will meet on September 21 in a middleweight fight, as the support act for Anthony Joshua against Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium in London.
“When it was offered to me, it was a no-brainer,” Smith said.
Smith was briefly a middleweight world champion, winning the vacant WBO belt in October 2015 with a stoppage victory over Apollo Thompson. His reign lasted 11 months and ended with his third defense, a KO loss to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in September 2016. In 2018, Smith challenged Jaime Munguia for the same WBO belt and lost by unanimous decision. He also lost on the scorecards to Magomed Kurbanov in 2021.
Smith then reeled off four straight wins, including a technical knockout of Jessie Vargas and, culminating in a massive fourth-round TKO of middleweight Chris Eubank Jr. in January 2023. The win over Eubank was tarnished in the eyes of some; particularly those who saw Smith hurt his opponent with an elbow.
Eubank and Smith had a rematch last September, with Eubank getting revenge via 10th-round TKO. That was Smith’s final appearance, meaning he will be returning to the ring after a year off.
But if Kelly and his team think Smith is vulnerable – and Smith is sure he is – then they are making a mistake, according to the 36-year-old Liverpool player.
“Maybe they think they’re catching me at the right moment,” Smith said. “It’s up to me to prove them wrong. And I’m confident I’m going to prove them wrong.”
Kelly competed in the 2016 Olympic Games as a welterweight. He made it to the second round of the tournament, where he lost on points to eventual gold medalist Daniyar Yeleussinov.
Kelly and his team became a little more ambitious after he turned pro in 2017, but it proved to be more to his detriment than his advantage. In his 10th fight, Kelly faced Ray Robinson and reached a draw in June 2019. Two fights later, in February 2021, Kelly was dropped by welterweight David Avanesyan, stopped in the sixth round. All five of Kelly’s fights since then have come at 154.
“I think he’s a very good fighter,” Smith said of Kelly, a 30-year-old from Sunderland. “I think he’s a very talented fighter, a very flashy fighter. One of those fighters that has that natural talent, that natural flair. You can praise him. But you can also dissect him. He has a lot of faults. He has a lot of insecurities. He has deficiencies in a lot of areas. He lacks areas that I can exploit.”
Smith believes he has more than enough left to give Kelly “a good beating.”
“Anyone at this level is a good fighter for six rounds. Anyone can compete,” Smith said. “But it’s the little things that make a big difference. Experience on the big stage is one of them. Having to sit down and bite the gumshield. I think I’ve had to do that in a lot more fights than Josh. I think he’s only had one big, tough fight – and he didn’t really get through it.”
Follow David Greisman on Twitter @FightingWords2His book “Fighting words: The heart and sorrow of boxing”, is available on Amazon.
