Angry Liam Smith ready to punish ‘clever’ Josh Kelly – then Chris Eubank Jr.

“They’ve made a massive mistake,” Liam Smith says of Josh Kelly and Adam Booth ahead of his fight with Kelly at London’s Wembley Stadium on Sept. 21.

“A loss is the end for me. [But] a loss is horrendous for Josh, too. Where does Josh go after losing to me? He lost to David Avanesyan. He’s beat a few tomato cans on Channel 5. His best win’s Troy Williamson. He loses to me, I just don’t see where he goes. He’s 30 years old. So it’s a massive mistake they’ve made.

“Write me off at your peril. People are too quick to do that. I’ve been a pro a long time now. I was ‘finished’ years ago, then all of a sudden I’m beating [Anthony] Fowler, beating [Jessie] Vargas, beating [Chris] Eubank. Me last two fights, I’ve topped two Sky pay-per-views, sold out arenas. I’ve been written off plenty of times before this and I’ll do the same again this time around.”

If the one-sided nature of the injured Smith’s defeat in his rematch with Eubank in September 2023 hasn’t finished his lengthy career as a world-class fighter, then there is little question that the talented Kelly is entering his toughest fight.

At 36, Smith sees the similarities with his victory over the younger, fresher Anthony Fowler in 2021 – the same year his career was first considered at risk of being over and when Kelly, against David Avanesyan, was matched tough and lost for the first time.

When the undercard of Daniel Dubois-Anthony Joshua was revealed and Smith-Kelly was on it it was the only fight that initially carried a degree of uncertainty – whether it was at junior middleweight or middleweight that they would fight. When it was then confirmed that they would fight at middleweight, where the 30-year-old Kelly had never previously competed but where Smith’s frame has naturally progressed, both the risk and the reward seemed more significant for Kelly, perhaps contributing to the sense that he and his trainer have angered Smith.

“It reminds me a lot of [preparing for Fowler],” he continued, to BoxingScene. “Josh and probably Adam Booth thinking they’re getting me at the right time; the perfect time for them, coming off the back of the Eubank performance. I can see why, but it’s down to me to prove the issues behind it – they won’t have looked that far into it. Adam and Josh were both ringside for the Eubank fight, and probably think they’re getting me at the right time, ‘cause Adam Booth and Josh Kelly had never, ever mentioned my name.

“If I didn’t know the issues behind the [Eubank] performance, I’d have just retired in the ring. If I’d had a good camp and performed like that I’d have retired there and then. How can I go from Fowler, Vargas, Eubank I, to then being finished? How can I go from being the No. 1 middleweight in Britain to No. 3 when I was injured and forced into that date? I’m being vocal about it – that’s why I’m coming for Ben Shalom the way I’m coming for Ben Shalom. I was basically forced into that rematch on that date. I wish I’d called their bluff, but I didn’t; hindsight’s a great thing. I paid the price for it more than anybody.

“It was [a mistake to take the Eubank rematch]. I was pressured into taking the second date because I’d already pulled out of June 17. A rematch got made and announced for July. I don’t get how I can pull out June 17 with a back injury and then fight two weeks later. Boxxer done that to try and put pressure on me, and when they announced Sept. 2, if I don’t fight that date, ‘Eubank will walk’; my contract’s up the wall then; they can’t pay me; it’ll get messy. Shit like that.

“But I thought, ‘If I make weight, I’ll beat him. I know I’m a better fighter with him. With gloves on and adrenaline, I’ll beat him.’ It didn’t work out that way. Boxxer still got their show; Chris got his win; then Boxxer signed Chris. That’s another lesson learned for me, but once bitten, twice shy. Whatever I go on to do in my career, I’ll never make that mistake with fighters I manage. Still to this day [I regret it]. It eats away at me. I’ll take half the money to fight Chris again.”

Smith’s trainer, Joe McNally, has also spoken about them pursuing a third fight with Eubank. Between them they recognize that no gambles can be taken with Smith’s fitness – he insists that the back that hampered him in the rematch with Eubank has made a full recovery – and McNally has also been frustrated by what he and his fighter perceive to be Booth and Kelly attempting to defeat them on the way down.

If Smith has a point to prove, then so, too, does his Liverpool-based trainer. The middleweight insists that he is not overlooking Kelly but speaks with the same passion, without prompting, about Eubank. It is the same passion he channeled before not only the victory over Fowler but that in the rematch with Liam Williams in 2017; it is also perhaps a passion enhanced by Eubank fighting on another Riyadh Season promotion one month later, and therefore the increased potential for them to fight again.

“Never in a million years [am I taking victory for granted], because lose and I’m finished,” he said. “I’ve got a bee in me bonnet over them thinking they’re getting me at the right time. I’ve got a bee in my bonnet over Adam Booth thinking he’s dead-clever with these games and what’s going on with this VADA thing. Like I said to Adam, ‘This is your first rodeo with Josh. Don’t start being clever.’ I said it to him, ‘I always had respect for you until you tried to play games with this. Don’t do it, because I’ll wipe the floor with you.’ They’ve picked the wrong person to be clever with.

“It’s not like I took punishment in the Eubank fight. I was bored shitless. It’s probably baffling to people when I say this. He doesn’t punch hard enough; I’ve got a very good chin; I’m very durable. That sounds crazy. ‘How are you bored – you’re losing?’ I thought, ‘You just emptied the tank trying to finish me; you couldn’t; you’re on the back foot now,’ and I couldn’t put punches together to make him tire. I just didn’t have it in me to do that. It was the build-up; the back injury, that hampered me the whole way through camp. Nothing to do with the ankle. If I was in the fight, the adrenaline would have overruled that ankle, easy. It was just because I was bored, [and] thinking a million things.

“[Kelly’s] very good. Very good. Very talented. Tons and tons of ability, [that] you’re blessed to be born with. He’s got that fast-twitch fibers, that fluidness, athleticism. How tough a fighter he is is a different story. I don’t think he likes anything tough. I don’t think he has the biggest heart. He’s very, very insecure, which is why he needs Adam Booth and Richard Towers wrapped around him telling him how good he is, how great he is. That’s what he lacks.

“[A third fight with Eubank] could be closer now, because this Riyadh Season – Eubank’s on it and I’m on it, so we both win, it’s probably easier to make. But take me out of the picture, it’s probably easy to make Hamzah [Sheeraz] and Eubank now also.

“From my point of view, I beat Liam Williams the first time, controversially. I gave Liam Williams the rematch. I told Frank Warren, ‘Make the Liam Williams rematch to right the wrong.’ Eubank should be saying the same thing.”