Dalton Smith edges Alberto Puello on a split decision to hold his WBC light-welterweight belt in front of his home city.
Dalton Smith is still the WBC light-welterweight world champion. He kept his belt with a split-decision win over Alberto Puello in a homecoming night in Sheffield.
The split verdict shows how tight the contest was. The judges did not agree, and Puello gave the champion a real test. Smith did enough to get the nod, and the home crowd got the result it came for.
Fighting in front of your own people brings pressure as well as noise, and Smith handled it. A title defense on home soil, against a rival who took it down to the wire, adds to his growing reputation at 140 pounds.
The division is stacked, and a narrow win like this will start conversations about what comes next. For now, Smith holds the WBC strap and has a big win in Sheffield behind him.
