“Respectful. Technical. Decent.” former WBA and Ring Magazine super middleweight champion, Callum Smith, told Boxxer with laugh when asked to describe Joshua Buatsi in three words.

Buatsi’s WBO interim title will be on the line when the British light heavyweights meet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday night. DAZN will televise the stacked ‘The Last Crescendo’ card globally.

It is no secret that Smith, 30-2 (22 KOs), considered his future after being beaten in seven rounds by current undisputed light heavyweight champion, Artur Beterbiev, last January but after sitting down and examining the loss, the 34 year-old found it impossible to let go of his ambition of becoming a two-weight world champion.

In the aftermath of a defeat, boxers always look for reasons as to why things haven’t gone to plan.

There is no shame in losing to one of the best and most destructive fighters on the planet but the Liverpudlian had genuine cause to believe that he could have given a better account of himself.

By the time he climbed between the ropes to face Beterbiev, Smith had been inactive for 17 months and had seen only six rounds of action in the four years since suffering a decision defeat to Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez back in December 2020.

Aware that he must beat Buatsi to secure a shot at the winner of this weekend’s rematch between Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol and keep his dream alive, Smith determined not to make the same mistake again.

Last November, he took a low profile eight round fight with Colombia’s Carlos Galvan on the undercard of the WBC interim flyweight title fight between Galal Yafai.

Having a genuine fight to prepare for gave real purpose to his gym work and he was able to roll directly into training for the fight with Buatsi on the back of a useful fifth round stoppage win.

He will need to have his sights aligned and reflexes honed when the first bell rings on Saturday.

2016 Olympic bronze medallist, Buatsi, 19-0 (13 KOs), is quick, talented and appears to be finally coming into his own. He won the WBO interim title by dominating Willy Hutchinson over twelve rounds last September and - in a real display of confidence - chose to take this dangerous assignment rather than wait for his shot at the winner of Beterbiev and Bivol.

Smith respects Buatsi’s achievements but does wonder why the 31 year-old has taken so long to reach this level.

"Good. It’s hard to criticize someone who’s undefeated,” he said. “I think he’s done everything asked of him. I think probably the only criticism is he maybe should have got there a little bit quicker with the amateur pedigree he had but it’s not about the time you get there, getting there is the most important thing. He’s where he needs to be.

“He’s interim world champion. I think he’s had a good career so far. Hopefully I can derail his plans and set him back a little bit but he’s a good fighter.”