On July 25, Kelly (18-1-1, 9 KOs) will make the first defense of the IBF 154-pound title he won by outpointing Bakhram Murtazaliev in January.

The Sunderland man will box Ireland’s Caoimhin Agyarko (18-0, 7 KOs) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on the undercard of Anthony Joshua’s heavyweight fight with Kristian Prenga.

Should he get past Agyarko, Kelly wants to start mixing with the division’s other champions and biggest names.

“I’d love to fight Zayas and Boots, all the big names out there. I just want to keep enjoying it. I want to be able to have the biggest fights possible,” he said during Matchroom’s Ordinary People show.

Ennis left Barclays Center in New York with the WBA and WBO titles, but his showing was so impressive that he climbed to No. 1 in The Ring’s 154-pound rankings. He’s also No. 9 pound-for-pound.

Kelly appreciates just how tall a challenge Ennis would present, but he would enter a unification fight as a world champion in his own right and is sure that he has the skills to cause an upset.

“I believe he is a great fighter,” he said. “Technical fight against Boots. Everyone can be beat. Everyone can be worked out and I've got a style that people find hard to fight against. I'm able to move, but I'm able to set my feet. I'm able to change angles. I've got loads of different looks.”

Kelly’s talent and boxing ability has never been in doubt, but he has always faced questions over his stamina and ability to grind out a win if Plan A didn’t work.

He dropped Murtazaliev in the fourth round, but the Russian stormed back. Kelly had to pick himself up off the floor in the ninth and dug deep to box his way to a hard-fought majority decision.

Ennis has far more dimensions than Murtazaliev, and the 29-year-old Philadelphian would provide an entirely different set of problems. Kelly would have to look deep inside of himself and answer similar questions to the ones he did on the night he won the title.

“It's weird because I knew I had it in me, but until you actually do it, you don't know what it feels like,” he said. “You haven't got that experience from it. But it's a difference between believing you've got it and knowing you've got it.”