Dalton Smith dismisses pre-fight advantage claims
Dalton Smith’s next opponent is in action on Saturday night in Dominican Republic
Dalton Smith has brushed off any suggestion that his world title challenger Alberto Puello will have an advantage over him because of the Dominican's tune up fight on Saturday.
The 31-year-old takes on five-feet-five Colombian Miguel Angel Bolano in his native Dominican Republic on Saturday.
It is slated as a 10-rounder, with Bolano having been stopped in his last outing, adding to his three prior defeats.
"I didn't want to wait for the fight against Dalton while he was inactive, so my team requested permission from the WBC to hold a fight beforehand," Puello (24-1, 10 KOs) told The Ring magazine - a reference to Smith's elbow injury which forced a postponement to the initial date of June 6.
Smith will be defending his WBC World Super Lightweight crown against Puello at Sheffield Arena on October 24.
It will be the Sheffielder's first fight since defeating Subriel Matias at the Barclays Centre, New York on January 10.
The Steel City man, 29, says Puello's warm-up fight won't give him an advantage.
"This will just be a tick-over to get a few rounds under his belt" Smith told The Star. "He has had quite a while out of the ring (12 months) so he probably he feels like he needs it.
"For me, I wouldn't need one, but a tune-up probably makes sense for him.
"I'll have been out for a few months but I've been out of the ring longer than that before and come back and put in some of my best performances. So it doesn't really mean anything."
The Handsworth fighter won't be watching any live streams of his opponent, this weekend.
"I don't watch much boxing, unless there is a really big fight. I might watch the highlights later in the week if there are any."
Smith declared himself 100 percent recovered from elbow surgery at a Manchester hospital.
"It was a day case. I was straight in and out. It is all fixed and I am ready to go."
He isn't impressed with Puello's recent statement: "Smith is a good fighter, but doesn't have anything I haven't seen before."
He responded: "It is just words, isn't it? I'm sure he'll find out at the end of October."