{"id":254146,"date":"2025-10-31T22:33:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T22:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254146\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T22:33:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T22:33:19","slug":"frank-smith-clarifies-josh-kelly-matchroom-boxing-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254146\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Smith clarifies Josh Kelly Matchroom Boxing situation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The career of Josh Kelly (17-1-1, 9 KOs) has always been somewhat of an enigma, with plenty of promise, but maybe not the promise fulfilled.<\/p>\n<p>He has recorded impressive wins against Ishmael Davis and, most recently, <a href=\"https:\/\/bigfightweekend.com\/recaps\/josh-kelly-vs-flavius-biea-recap\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Flavius Biea<\/a>. It was recently announced by various media outlets, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boxingscene.com\/articles\/bakhram-murtazaliev-josh-kelly-could-be-heading-to-newcastle-england-in-january\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">BoxingScene<\/a>, that Team Bakhram Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) have called off a purse bid between their fighter and Josh Kelly.<\/p>\n<p>Rumours then began to surface that Kelly had re-signed with Matchroom, with the promotional giant expected to stage the fight. Frank Smith has spoken to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BJMpaByMFPg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Boxing Social<\/a> and clarified Kelly\u2019s promotional future.<\/p>\n<p>Frank Smith clarifies Josh Kelly\u2019s promotional situation<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Boxing Social, Smith was asked to speak on the situation and clarify the Mutazaliev fight and Kelly\u2019s promotional future:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, Matchroom will be promoting Josh Kelly. Nothing\u2019s announced yet. Lots of talk. I will always wait until it\u2019s formally announced on all these things.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been speaking to Adam Booth quite a lot. He still has some form of relationship with Wasserman, but not from a promotional capacity as far as i\u2019m aware. So, Matchroom would be promoting him moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly vs Murtazaliev \u2013 date targeted<\/p>\n<p>BoxingScene further reveals that the Kelly-Murtazaliev fight is being targeted for a date near the end of January in the U.K., with DAZN streaming the bout.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Murtazaliev being the current IBF super welterweight champion, it appears likely the fight will be headed to the north east of England, with Sunderland or Newcastle likely landing spots.<\/p>\n<p>Murtazaliev has a fearsome reputation following his destructive win against Tim Tszyu, and would present a formidable target for Kelly.<\/p>\n<p>The Brit would also present a complex puzzle for the reigning champion. Kelly is fleet-footed and difficult to pin down. His excellent movement and punch placement could frustrate the champion.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly vs Murtazaliev, who are you backing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The career of Josh Kelly (17-1-1, 9 KOs) has always been somewhat of an enigma, with plenty of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-254146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}