Adam Booth says it’s time for Josh Kelly to take big fights “he can’t just win in first and second gear”

Trainer Adam Booth was satisfied with Josh Kelly’s Wembley Stadium victory over Ishmael Davis a fortnight ago and hopes it will lead the fighter to big domestic fights or world titles.

Kelly had been due to face Liam Smith, but the Liverpool star withdrew a week before the fight with illness.

The previously-undefeated Davis came in at short notice. Kelly moved to 16-1-1 (8 KOs) and was largely impressive, though he had to fend off a late Davis charge and the majority decision in Kelly’s favor raised eyebrows. Booth fumed at the narrow margin of victory, with the decisive scorecards reading 115-113 and 115-114 for Kelly.

“He did okay, but he beat a very good fighter in first and second gear. I scored it 9-3,” Booth said. 

Booth was particularly pleased with Kelly’s fight week mindset and how he remained intent on the task at hand, despite the change in personnel in the opposite corner. 

“That was the most impressive thing of all, that he’s now proved that all these mental problems that he had in the past that were affecting him in his profession have been dealt with, and he didn’t blink once,” Booth added. “He really didn’t, in terms of, ‘If it’s not him, it’s him’, and that was genuine. It wasn’t bravado. It wasn’t just an act. It wasn’t him lying to himself or being ignorant. He genuinely believes in him now and that he’s got game to deal with any style. And that was probably the most pleasing thing for me because we’d completed the training. We were about to do the last session when we got the news about Liam. So I’m really impressed with him, and how he stayed the consummate professional.”

Booth had wanted the Smith fight for Kelly for a while, but now thinks the Liverpool man is too “unreliable”. 

“We were left, having trained… it wasn’t just the pull out, the fight itself took ages to put together at the start and the communication wasn’t flowing, we weren’t getting an answer on whether the fight was happening or not, we committed to it,” Booth added. “He wasn’t, at the start, and so we were told it was March, then April, then May, and it just dragged on and on until eventually, Spencer Brown put it together for September and got it contracted.

“It’s not just the fact that we’d trained since January, with a fight that we were hoping for that kept getting delayed, the fight then fell out of bed at the last moment.

“Had Spencer not got Ishmael Davis approved, then Josh wouldn’t have fought on the Wembley show and we would have trained and worked for eight, nine months for nothing. And that’s the hard thing to stomach, and to go back into that situation where you potentially risk that again doesn’t sit well. I’m well aware injuries happen, but it’s just the whole thing has left a bad taste and, ideally, I’d like Smith to be in the rear-view mirror and just to look forward to bigger names and bigger fights.”

Booth remains certain Kelly, a 2016 Olympian, will fulfill his potential and, when asked how much more there was to see of his gifted contender, Booth explained: “If you look at his career throughout, and even if you look at the last fight, if you take the highlights from each round and put them together, that’s ultimately what I think you can see. You can see a selection of a lot of stuff because he has so many different styles. He spins a lot of plates, and the gameplan for Liam Smith was really set and it wouldn’t have looked the same as it did for a fight with Ishmael Davis.

“Ishmael’s got a much bigger upper body and much longer arms. I think Davis is also much tougher and I think he’s got a phenomenal chin on him and he’s still in his prime. When you’ve got someone with a short spine and big, long arms, a short neck and a good chin, who puts their hands up like ear muffs with long legs they give so little away. It becomes a different type of fight, whereas although Liam Smith’s got a tight guard, he doesn’t have the physical stature of Ishmael Davis, so by definition it would have been different gaps. There were times when Davis was coming forwards and I could see there were no gaps at all, so Josh was just playing with him, just playing the smart game, picking his moments very carefully.”

Booth is also working with David Adelaye, who could yet be paired with Solomon Dacres in a fight that had been due to take place earlier in the year. He believes Kelly could land a big fight that will allow him to deliver on his potential.

“The big domestic fights as well as the title fights,” Booth said, of what he was hoping for next. “Josh can do anything between 154 and 160. We all love the big domestic names, [Chris] Eubank, [Conor] Benn, [Hamzah] Sheeraz, I keep hearing rumours about Kell Brook wanting to get back in the mix, and then the world champions and the elites. He [Kelly]’s in his prime. He’s 30 years old now and it’s time for him to take these big fights, the ones he can’t just win in first and second gear.”