{"id":811426,"date":"2026-10-23T12:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T12:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/811426\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T12:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T12:22:09","slug":"smith-vs-puello-tony-bellew-says-world-champion-should-target-adam-azim-at-hillsborough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/811426\/","title":{"rendered":"Smith vs Puello: Tony Bellew says world champion should target Adam Azim at Hillsborough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dalton has already achieved his dream of becoming world champion. Nobody can ever take that WBC green-and-gold belt away from him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">I know he dreams of fighting at Hillsborough and I understand exactly what that means. Winning the WBC title at Goodison Park, the former home of my beloved Everton, was my lifelong dream, which I achieved by knocking out Ilunga Makabu in 2016.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dalton needs the right opponent for his own special night and to make him into a mainstream star.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There are huge names out there and Dalton is capable of competing with the very best. But for me, Azim would be the one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There is nothing quite like a domestic rivalry and the atmosphere would be incredible. Two top British fighters, a genuine rivalry and promoters Hearn and Ben Shalom going at each other in the build-up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Azim is lightning fast, possibly the quickest fighter in British boxing pound-for-pound. But timing beats speed, and that&#8217;s what makes this rivalry so fascinating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">I&#8217;d love Azim to win a world title first, then they could meet in a unification fight. It could even become a trilogy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But beating Puello is no formality and Dalton cannot afford to lose focus. Then we can start dreaming about Azim and Hillsborough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tony Bellew was speaking to BBC Sport boxing journalist Kal Sajad. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dalton has already achieved his dream of becoming world champion. Nobody can ever take that WBC green-and-gold belt&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-811426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}