Sheffield has a rich boxing history, having produced world champions including Prince Naseem Hamed, Johnny Nelson and Kell Brook, and those in attendance gave their latest champion a hero’s welcome.<\/p>\n
Wearing the blue and white of his beloved Sheffield Wednesday, he made his ring walk to AC\/DC’s Thunderstruck. <\/p>\n
The contest began cagily, with neither fighter willing to overcommit as both showed sharp defensive skills. <\/p>\n
Smith had beaten the fearsome puncher Matias by standing and trading, but Puello posed a different challenge – a slick southpaw relying on movement and counter-punching.<\/p>\n
The champion dictated the pace in the early rounds. He landed a right in the fourth, but Puello, 32, found his range with his left before Smith connected again just before the bell.<\/p>\n
Puello – whose only career loss came against Matias last year – came alive in the sixth, landing a series of straight lefts to take the round. The challenger then slipped to the canvas, briefly raising hopes of a knockdown among the home crowd.<\/p>\n
The atmosphere resembled a football terrace, with a drummer and trumpeter accompanying fans singing Sheffield Wednesday songs.<\/p>\n
A superb double jab and right hook from Smith in the ninth was answered by an uppercut and hook to the body from Puello, showcasing the quality of both fighters.<\/p>\n
With the contest – originally scheduled for June before an elbow injury forced Smith to withdraw – finely poised, both men had everything to fight for heading into the championship rounds.<\/p>\n
Cut below his right eye, Smith traded blows with Puello, perhaps edging the exchanges through his higher work-rate.<\/p>\n
Smith played to the crowd in the final 20 seconds, before leaping into his father’s arms at the final bell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sheffield has a rich boxing history, having produced world champions including Prince Naseem Hamed, Johnny Nelson and Kell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-939863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939863","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=939863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}