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Liam Smith wants to use Josh Kelly as a stepping stone towards another shot at a world title but the former WBO super welterweight champion is aware that he will be fighting for his reputation when he meets the Sunderland man at Wembley Stadium on September 21st.
Although Smith believes he still has plenty left to offer, the 36-year-old is also a realist. He knows that he needs to prove that he is a much more dangerous fighter than the unrecognisably tame figure who turned up to his rematch with Chris Eubank Jnr last November.
Last January, an inspired Smith, 33-4-1 (20 KOs), blitzed Eubank, stopping the Brighton man inside four rounds. However, after suffering a back injury during the build up to the rematch, he struggled to make the 160lb weight limit and looked a shadow of his usual self as he was stopped in the 10th.
Fairly or unfairly, despite Smith’s long, exciting career that is the last image that boxing fans have of the Liverpudlian.
Given Smith’s body of work, his performance that night can be justly written off as an aberration, but Smith has been around boxing long enough to know that fans don’t want to hear excuses or explanations. They want to see hard evidence.
Beating the in-form Kelly, 15-1-1 (8 KOs), would certainly provide plenty.
“The fire for this performance is to get people back on board with, ‘No, he’s not finished yet.’” he told Queensberry.
“Whether it was Josh Kelly or anybody else. The fire in my next fight after the Eubank rematch was that I’ve got to prove to people that I’m not finished.”
Considering Smith remains one of British boxing’s most high-profile and well-respected fighters, it is eye-opening to be reminded that he hasn’t held a full version of a world title since Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez took his WBO super welterweight belt from him back in 2016. He also hasn’t boxed for a world title since Jaime Munguia beat him in 2018.
Smith faced the very best at 154lbs and has mixed in good company at 160lbs but is insistent that he doesn’t want to retire until he has had one more crack at one of the leading lights at middleweight.
“Definitely. That was always the ambition,” he said. “I’ve been a world champion and I’ve made the money I’ve made, but I’m still in boxing. I could retire happy, but I want to be a two-time, two-weight world champion.”