The 31-year-old has long been touted as one of the most naturally gifted fighters in Britain and he produced a display of discipline and heart to box his way to a majority decision win over Bakhram Murtazaliev and become the IBF junior middleweight champion, live on DAZN.

The scores were 113-113, 115-111 and 114-113.

Ordinarily, sportsmen from Sunderland don’t receive the warmest of welcomes when they make the 30 minute trip to Newcastle but Kelly (18-1-1, 9 KOs) was backed by a vociferous crowd.

The partisan atmosphere didn’t faze 33-year-old Murtazaliev (23-1, 17 KOs) in the slightest.

As Kelly circled the ring, The Ring’s No. 4-ranked junior middleweight found his range quicker than expected and smartly took every opportunity to fire a right hand to Kelly’s body.

Rather than skipping immediately out of range, Kelly occasionally chose to hold his feet and exchange and caught Murtazaliev with a razor sharp left hook as the second round drew to a close.

Slowly but surely, Kelly was getting to grips with the 33-year-old Russian power.

Murtazaliev answered the bell for the fourth sporting a graze under his left eye. He patiently stalked Kelly but was dropped by a perfectly timed left jab as he over committed with a right hand. Murtazaliev got up with a smile on his face and Kelly wisely boxed his way to the end of the round rather than looking for a finish.

Without doing anything spectacular, Murtazaliev seemed to seize some initiative back in the fifth but walked into a hard counter right as the round ended and was steadied by another left hand early in the sixth.

Murtazaliev was quickly approaching crisis point.

Clearly full of confidence, Kelly showboated in the seventh as a Murtazaliev plodded after him throwing single shots.

Out of the blue, Murtazaliev found a lifeline. In the ninth, he dropped Kelly with a hard left hook high to the head. Kelly sank to the canvas. He listened to the count and got to his feet but was clearly hurt.

Suddenly, Kelly’s movement looked ragged and loose but he managed to avoid absorbing anything significant and made it to the end of the round before boxing his way through a surprisingly close tenth as Murtazaliev resisted the urge to throw everything at him.

Kelly found a rhythm in the eleventh but now Murtazaliev was managing to land clipping shots before Kelly could slip away out of range.

Both fighters clearly felt like the fight was in the balance as the twelfth began. Murtazaliev pressed forward but Kelly managed to narrowly avoid a series of heavy right hands and punished him with an accurate two-handed burst as a tense, absorbing fight went to the cards.

After almost nine years as a professional, Kelly achieved his dream and suddenly finds himself as a major player in an active junior middleweight division, with a foot against Jaron 'Boots' Ennis on the horizon.

CompuBox Stats: Josh Kelly takes the title from Bakhram Murtazaliev with movement and weathering the final push from the defending champion. Kelly landed 75 of 202, 37% total punches while Murtazaliev landed 93 of 444, 21%. Both fighters tasted the canvas. Murtazaliev closed with a 43 to 17 connect advantage over the last 4 rounds, but it was too little too late. Scores were 113-113, 115-111 and 114-113.