Smoke rings to divert (3,3)
I believe the answer is:
put off
'divert' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'smoke rings to' is the wordplay.
'smoke' becomes 'puff' (puffing is a kind of smoking).
'rings' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters are ringed or contained by others).
'puff' going around 'to' is 'PUT-OFF'.
(Other definitions for put off that I've seen before include "Don't encourage - delay" , "Deter; postpone" , "Deter; deterred" , "Postpone or dissuade" , "Defer - deter" .)