‘Next level’ Adam Azim ready for leading lights at 140lbs

Adam Azim declared himself as having reached “the next level” after he produced his finest performance to secure his finest victory in stopping Sergey Lipinets.

Throughout the course of nine one-sided rounds at Wembley Arena, the 22 year old provided the clearest demonstration yet that he is among Britain’s most promising fighters by boxing with a patience and maturity beyond his years and displaying cultured edges mastered by perhaps only the best.

He dropped Lipinets – previously stopped only at welterweight by Jaron “Boots” Ennis – in the third round with a counter left hook and repeatedly hurt him until, in the ninth round, a succession of increasingly concussive right uppercuts forced the referee Steve Gray to intervene.

Lipinets, 35 years old and back in his natural junior-welterweight division, was already by then a defeated fighter who had little left to give. He had, however, provided Azim with the nature of test those around the younger fighter had wanted – he was durable, aggressive and ambitious, and more than any of Azim’s 12 other previous opponents forced him to fight on the inside, where Azim consistently impressed.

There is little question that a contest between Azim and Dalton Smith, his leading domestic rival, is the most appealing that can be made in either fighter’s careers, but there is also little cause for optimism that a fight between one athlete promoted by Boxxer and another, in Smith, promoted by Matchroom, will be made. 

Azim, like Smith a former European champion, regardless proved that he is capable of competing with and beating world-class opposition, and, according to his promoters Boxxer, could yet feature on the undercard of Chris Eubank Jnr-Conor Benn on April 26.

“My performance was amazing,” he said. “You had legends like Shawn Porter there – even Amir Khan was there. It was great for them to watch me put on a great performance. I wanted to put on a clinical performance – you’ve seen me on the back foot, to mid-range, to fighting on the inside. You hadn’t seen that. How many shoulder rolls did I do there? You hadn’t seen that before. This is the next stage. The next level.

“He’s a pressure fighter. He’s a very heavy hitter. I had to be really patient in there. I couldn’t just go in and use my head. I stayed calm – even the low blows; I hit him with a few but that was my mistake – I had to dissect him. I had to break him down. World-class fighting – you have to be patient, and I was patient.”

Azim had had two points deducted for low blows, and Kazakhstan’s Lipinets – whose face was bloody and beaten before Gray’s intervention, and to the extent he reportedly suffered a broken nose – was said to have declared him ready to compete with Devin Haney, Teofimo Lopez and Ryan Garcia, the junior-welterweight division’s highest-profile names.

“A guy like that, speaking like that about me – I’m honored,” Azim said. “He’s fought ‘Boots’ Ennis and Mikey Garcia – I’ve got so much respect for him. He told me, straightaway, in the corner, ‘You were unbelievable’.

“Do you know what’s funny? I didn’t even know I hit him with a left hook [in the third round]. I just saw him drop. I didn’t know he got caught with a left hook. I think Mikey Garcia hit him with a left hook – took a shot to take a shot.

“It’s my accuracy. The speed – I have fast hands, but with fast hands comes power, and I’ve got both. I was very patient in there – that was the main thing. I’m definitely a threat to the division.”

Azim’s success again justified the McGuigans’ aggressive and ambitious matchmaking, and Azim’s trainer Shane McGuigan said of Lipinets: “He ran out of ideas. He couldn’t do anything, and when he did – that’s when the storm of uppercuts… Normal boxes ticked, but 22 years of age. I’ve been saying this since he was 18, 19 years of age. This kid’s the real deal. We’re going to see the best of this kid when he’s 25 years of age.”

McGuigan was then asked about who he’d like Azim to fight next, and he responded: “It’d be great to get him in a domestic fight. But realistically the only domestic opponents we’d be looking at is Dalton Smith, Josh Taylor [who McGuigan used to train] and Jack Catterall. Former world champions and people like that. 

“We looked at getting Montana Love – he turned it down. Someone that’s gonna come out, be verbal, and come to win. Sergey came to win; Ohara [Davies, Azim’s previous opponent] didn’t come to win as much. When guys come to win is when you’re going to see the best out of him. He’s a volume puncher. He doesn’t think he threw that many punches. But the likes of Dalton and people like that – they sit back and they’re calculated. But when he starts landing his shots and waves of attacks, he’s going to break them all up – and no one’s going to be as tough as Lipinets. When he hits them with those same shots they’re going down.”