In today’s final press conference, middleweight contender Austin ‘Ammo’ Williams let Queensberry team captain Hamzah Sheeraz know that he feels he lacks the fighting spirit to be in this kind of clash.
Williams (16-0, 11 KOs) says Sherez (19-0, 15 KOs) wasn’t born for this, and he’s going to expose that on Saturday night when the two meet, live on DAZN PPV in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Now calling himself, ‘Tiger,’ Williams says he’s going through a “metamorphism in terms of changing his fighting style, and he’s now a completely different fighter than he was before.
If that’s true, it’s coming just in time, as Hamzah has knocked out 13 straight opponents, many of them in the early rounds.
Williams’ Metamorphosis
“As a fighter, we can really tell who is born for this and who is not. I feel like he’s not born for this. He’s been manuevered right,” said Austin ‘Ammo’ Willams about Hamzah Sheeraz during today’s final press conference.
There’s no question that Hamzah has been well-matched by his promoters and has yet to face a true killer at 160. This is common for young fighters in the sport. Hamzah is 25, so it would have been risky for Queensberry to throw him on the front lines of battle in any of his previous fights because he likely would have lost by now if they matched him against someone a little too good.
This fight is going to show whether Hamzah is ready to be put in against someone really good, like Janibek Alimkhanuly or Carlos Adames. Those two are the class of what’s now a very weak middleweight division.
The weight class has become the weakest in boxing now that all the top guys have either moved up, gotten old, or retired. Hamzah and ‘Tiger’ Williams are now what’s considered top-drawer fighters in the barren of-talent middleweight division.
“He got picked up out of the amateurs. Frank did a great job with him, making his career the way it is, and that’s one of the reasons why I called him out back in September. Eddie knows I’ve been coming after Hamzah because the aesthetic of things would look really good for me.
“So, now I’m ready to show who I am. I really evolved and I went through a state of metamorphosis to become something that is a lot more dangerous than what you’ve ever seen before, and on Saturday night, it’ll be on full display,” said Williams.
It doesn’t get much better than this for the division. Williams talks like he’s changed, but we haven’t seen any “metamorphosis” from him as of yet.
In his last fight, he fought like he was walking on eggshells and was utterly cautious until scoring a knockout against his lower-level opponent, Armel Mbumba-Yassa. If there was a true change in Williams’ fighting style, he would have jumped on this guy from round one rather than waiting until the seventh.
Promise of War
“Fight night is 48 hours away, and I’m ready,” said Hamzah. “I understand the assignment I have in front of me. I haven’t taken it lightly. We know what we have to do. But a fight of this magnitude, and with the history that it’s got, that’s the only thing I should have on my mind. To put a pure beating on my opponent,” said Sheeraz.
“A full-blown war, something that Hamzah has never been through, anything that he’s going to go through on Saturday night,” said Ammo Williams. “It’s going to be a mental fortitude that he’s going to have to stir up and ask himself questions.
“You guys will see. I can’t talk about it anymore. I’m just ready to show it,” said Williams, AKA ‘Tiger.’
Sheeraz’s Captaincy
“It’s an honor. It just shows the massive faith and trust Frank has in me, and I think the only way to pay him back is to get the extra four points,” said Hamzah when asked about his thoughts on being chosen as the Team Captain for Queensberry.
“I invite power, I invite skills, I invite it all,” said Ammo Williams when asked about whether he’s concerned with Hamzah’s punching power and the fact that he’s knocked out 13 straight opponents. “I want to see it; I want to feel it. I’m hungry for it.
“I’m not running from anything. I’m standing straight to it. You guys will see when someone’s spirit is meant for this. Don’t miss it. It will be live on DAZN on June 1st. I looked him dead in his eyes, I seen his soul. I know what he’s all about, and on Saturday, I’ll exploit a lot of different things that you don’t know about him,” said Williams.
We’ll see if ‘Tiger’ Williams will come to fight like he’s talking or play it safe, and box like he normally does. I wouldn’t advise Williams to go to war with Hamzah because that would be risky, and he doesn’t possess the power to do that.
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