By Trevor Mcintyre: Welterweight contender Josh ‘Pretty Boy’ Kelly (7-0, 5 KOs) says he’ll be ready to step it up a level to world class opposition after his scheduled 10 round fight this Saturday night against Walter Fabian Castillo (13-2, 3 KOs) on the undercard of the Tony Bellew vs Oleksandr Usyk card on Sky Box Office PPV at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
Saturday’s fight isn’t expected to be a competitive match for Kelly. His promoter Eddie Hearn selected Castillo as a last minute opponent due to the bigger fights falling through. This is just a tickover fight for the 24-year-old Kelly, who is hoping to fight a bigger name like Brandon ‘Bam Bam’ Rios (34-4-1, 25 KOs).
It won’t be Rios that Kelly will be fighting on December 8 when he fights on the undercard of Kell Brook vs. Michael Zerafa card at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, UK. Rios is fighting this month against Saul Canelo Alvarez’s brother Ramon ‘Inocente’ Alvarez on November 17 on a DAZN card at the Kansas Star Arena, Mulvane, in Kansas. Rios, 32, won’t be able to get back into the ring so soon after his fight with Alvarez to face Kelly on December 8, even though it would be an opportunity for him to get another payday and to stay busy.
” want to get to the top and be in the world level mix as soon as possible,” Kelly said to skysports.com. Lomachenko will be sitting in the crowd so I want to show him a few tricks I can do. Adam has the plan to start stepping me up and getting the fights that we’ve talked about before, Brandon Rios and these type of guys. I want to test myself.”
2016 Olympian Kelly wants to show off his talent in front of the packed crowd this Saturday night on the Usyk vs. Bellew card. Kelly likes the idea that WBA lightweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (11-1, 9 KOs) will be in the audience. Kelly obviously no intention of wanting to fight the much smaller Lomachenko. Kelly wants to impress Lomachenko with his slick boxing skills that he typically uses in his fights.
Kelly isn’t saying who he and his management have in mind for him to fight in 2019 other than Brandon Rios. Kelly will be turning 25-years-old in March, and he’s going to need to be stepped up against better opposition soon for him to keep improving. Fights against the likes of Castillo aren’t going to do much for his career.