Adam Azim: I don’t need Dalton Smith, he needs me

Adam Azim has spent the past few months holed up in the gym working on his game, blissfully distant from boxing politics and repetitive questions about other fighters. 

On Saturday night, the unbeaten super lightweight returns from an eight month injury lay-off and fights Ohara Davies at the Copperbox Arena. 

The 22-year-old is prepared for his peace to be broken.

“It’s been such an extremely long period of time where I’ve not even fought in the ring for a while due to injuries, due to making the fight happen. Initially, I was meant to fight Harlem Eubank, but I’m now fighting Ohara Davies, which is a bigger fight. I see it as a more dangerous fight,” Azim, 11-0 (8 KOs), told BoxingScene. 

“In life everything happens for a reason, and I’ve obviously got a bigger, better thing, which is a bigger fight now.”

As fight week kicks into gear, Azim knows that he will face a line of interviewers, all with more questions to ask about his promoter, Ben Shalom, and his run-ins with Dalton Smith and Eddie Hearn, than his fight with Davies. 

As frustrating as it must be, Azim has become numb to it. He has dusted off his stock answer and slipped it effortlessly back into his repertoire.

“These lot have been chasing the Dalton Smith fight for a while,” he said.

“All the media have been braving to have that fight. The thing is, I’m not in a rush to have that fight. I don’t need Dalton, Dalton needs me. These fighters need me because I’ve got a bigger profile.”

Azim isn’t ignorant to the fact that people want to see him tested. He also understands exactly why his junior welterweight peers want to get him in the ring as soon as possible. He insists that he isn’t going to allow anybody else to knock him off schedule. 

“Obviously I’m still young. They know I’m still young,” he said of his rivals. 

“If anything they’ll probably chuck money at me, thinking I’ll take them for money. No, I’m not that person. I’m that person who’s after legacy. I’m the person who wants to improve and be the best to come out of UK. That’s my ambition.”

It will go over lots of heads this week but Davies, 25-3 (18 KOs), is a test.

For years, the heavy-handed Londoner would have been somewhere close to the bottom of the list for any matchmaker charged with finding an opponent for an exciting, unbeaten prospect to return from injury against.

The 32-year-old’s style makes him difficult to look good against and his lack of filter also gives him the the ability to infiltrate his opponent’s mind.

There are a number of reasons why the fight makes sense for Azim.

He has known Davies since he was a child. He has seen him click into character and kick up a fuss at press conferences but has also spent hours and hours with the real Ohara Davies and leant on a ring apron, watching him train and spar. Fighting a friend isn’t easy but that familiarity should allow Azim to approach the fight coldly rather than allowing Davies to get under his skin.

“Because it’s been so many years, I don’t how the sparring was because I was nine or 10 years old that time,” Azim recalled. “When I used to watch Ohara train and spar I was just a kid so I never thought of saying, ‘I’m gonna beat him’ or anything like that. It was just more purely just watching him spar and getting some tips off him

“Obviously he has his moments where he likes to approach an opponent and where he wants to diss ‘em. But with me, in this case, we’re both friends. You know each other for years. I’ve got nothing bad to say about him. All we want to do is put a great fight on.

“When I go into the fight there’s no friendship – it’s just pure war – but when you come out the ring we’re still friends. Next morning I’ll probably call him up like, ‘Listen, let’s go get something to eat.’

“I’ve got respect for him but when we get in that ring it’s probably more like Dan Azeez and Joshua Buatsi. They were good friends and they had to fight each other. It’s all respect after the ring.”

In January, Davies suffered a shocking first round stoppage loss to Venezuelan warhorse, Ismael Barroso. After waiting years for a chance to prove himself at world level, Davies’ big night couldn’t have gone any worse and resulted in him having to take this weekend’s make or break fight.

Azim made his name with a series of blistering early finishes but although he is prepared for Davies to be on high alert from the opening bell this weekend, he doesn’t expect him to fight with an all-or-nothing sense of desperation. 

“Ohara has always had that mindset to be dangerous, so not necessarily,” he said. “Obviously he’s still got that [the loss to Barroso] in his back in his head, but he’s not going to be thinking ‘Oh. I need to go in and try and knock him out.’ He’s going to go in and try and win. He’s going to go in because he’s got a different mentality and he’s always been a dangerous opponent. So now I’m not taking my hats off with him.”

John Evans has contributed to a number of well-known publications and websites for over a decade. You can follow John on X @John_Evans79