On January 10, the 29-year-old from Sheffield announced himself on the world stage in spectacular style when he stopped the dangerous Subriel Matias in the fifth round of a firefight at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

The stunning victory earned Smith the WBC title and immediately made him a major player in an ultra-competitive 140-pound division.

Smith (19-0, 14 KOs) made plans for a mandatory defense of his title against two-time world champion Puello (25-1, 11 KOs), but injury ruled him out of a scheduled June date.

The Ring's No. 1-ranked junior welterweight is looking forward to regenerating that sense of excitement when he returns home to finally fight the tricky Dominican southpaw at Sheffield Arena on October 24, live on DAZN.

"Boxing, you enjoy it for a short time and then it's like, 'what's next?'" Smith told The Ring.

"You need to keep proving yourself. You've got to keep producing these good wins and proving why you're a legit world champion."

There have been a number of high-profile comings and goings in the junior welterweight division since Smith became a champion.

Three weeks after he beat Matias, Shakur Stevenson stepped up from lightweight and produced an outstanding display to outpoint Teofimo Lopez and win The Ring and WBO titles.

That result persuaded Lopez to leave the 140-pound division behind. On Saturday night, Lopez challenges Rolly Romero for the WBA welterweight title at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

After a relatively short stay at junior welterweight, Keyshawn Davis has also stated his intention to move up to the 147-pound division.

Puello, 32, is ranked at No. 4 by The Ring and as well as being an extremely dangerous mandatory title defense, Smith believes that the fight is also a truly significant one for the junior welterweight division.

"It's a massive fight," he said.

"Alberto's been on our radar for the last 18 months, when he was champion, before we even beat Subriel. We're two of the top guys in the division so it's going to be one hell of a fight."