WBC MIDDLEWEIGHT TITLE CHAMPIONSHIP KINGDOM ARENA RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA 

FEBRUARY 22, 2025

 TV: DAZN.com/WBC   

THIS WILL BE THE WBC’S 2, 233 CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE   FIGHT   IN   THE   SIXTY-TWO YEAR HISTORY OF THE WBC

 FRANK WARREN / QUEENSBERRY PROMOTIONS PRESENTS:

 

                       

 

CARLOS ADAMES                                                    HAMZAH SHEERAZ

(DOMINICAN REPUBLIC)                                                                       (GB)

WBC CHAMPION                                                        OFFICIAL CHALLENGER / WBC no. 1

 

Nationality:       Dom. R.                                                Nationality:          GB

Date of Birth:    May 7, 1994                                           Date of Birth:       May 25, 1999

Birthplace:        Comendador, Dom. R.                            Birthplace:           Slough, Berkshire, GB

Residence:         Las Vegas, Nevada                                 Residence:            Ilford, Essex, GB

Alias:                Caballo Bronco                                      Alias:                   Mohammed Sheeraz

Record:             24-1-0, 18 ko’s                                       Record:                21-0-0, 17 ko’s

KO’S %:           75%                                                           KO’S %:              81%

Age:                 30                                                               Age:                    25

Guard:             Orthodox                                                Guard:                Orthodox

Total rounds:    127                                                          Total rounds:       86

World title fights: 3 (3-0-0)                                          WBC titles:          SILVER/COMM/BBBofC

Trainer:            Ismael Salas                                          Manager:             Frank Warren

Promoter:         Top Rank                                              Promoter:            Queensberry Promotions

 

WBC´S MIDDLEWEIGHT WORLD CHAMPIONS

 

NAME                              PERIODO CHAMPION

1. DICK TIGER (NIGERIA) 1963
2. JOEY GIARDELLO (US) 1963 – 1965
3. DICK TIGER (NIGERIA) * 1965 – 1966
4. EMILE GRIFFITH (VIRG. ISLAND) 1966 – 1967
5. NINO BENVENUTI (ITALY) 1967
6. EMILE GRIFFITH (VIRG. ISLANDS) * 1967 – 1968
7. NINO BENVENUTI (ITALY) * 1968 – 1970
8. CARLOS MONZON (ARGENTINA) 1970 – 1974
9. RODRIGO VALDEZ (COLOMBIA) 1974 – 1976
10. CARLOS MONZON (ARGENTINA) * 1976 – 1977
11. RODRIGO VALDEZ (COLOMBIA) * 1977 – 1978
12. HUGO CORRO (ARGENTINA) 1978 – 1979
13. VITO ANTUOFERMO (ITALY) 1979 – 1980
14. ALAN MINTER (GB) 1980
15. MARVIN HAGLER (US) 1980 – 1987
16. RAY LEONARD (US) 1987
17. THOMAS HEARNS (US) 1987 – 1988
18. IRAN BARKLEY (US) 1988 – 1989
19. ROBERTO DURAN (PANAMA) 1989
20. JULIAN JACKSON (VIRG. ISLAND) 1990 – 1993
21. GERALD MCCLELLAN (US) 1993 – 1995
22. JULIAN JACKSON (VIRG. ISLANDS) * 1995
23. QUINCY TAYLOR (US) 1995 – 1996
24. KEITH HOLMES (US) 1996 – 1998
25. HASSINE CHERIFI (FRANCE) 1998 – 1999
26. KEITH HOLMES (US) * 1999 – 2001
27. BERNARD HOPKINS (US) 2001 – 2005
28. JERMAIN TAYLOR (US) 2005 -2007
29. KELLY PAVLIK (US) 2007 – 2010
30. SEBASTIAN ZBIK (GERMANY) INTERIM 2009 – 2011
31. SERGIO MARTINEZ (ARGENTINA) 2010
32. JULIO C. CHAVEZ JR. (MEXICO) 2011 –      2012
33. SERGIO MARTINEZ (ARGENTINA) * 2012 – 2014
34. MARCO A. RUBIO (MEXICO) INTERIM     2014
35. GENNADY GOLOVKIN (KAZAKHSTAN) INTERIM 2014 – 2016
36. MIGUEL COTTO (P. RICO) 2014 – 2015
37. SAUL ALVAREZ (MEXICO) 2015 – 2016
38. GENNADY GOLOVKIN (KAZAKHSTAN) * 2016 – 2018
39. SAUL ALVAREZ (MEXICO) * Franchise 2018 – 2021
40. CARLOS ADAMES (DOM. R.) INTERIM 2022-2024
41. JERMALL CHARLO (US) 2018 – 2024
42. CARLOS ADAMES (DOM. R.) * 2024 –

 

* REGAINED

 

WBC´S MIDDLEWEIGHT TOP TEN CHAMPIONS

 

1. RAY LEONARD (US)

 

2. BERNARD HOPKINS (US)

 

 

3. CARLOS MONZON (ARGENTINA)

 

 

4. MARVIN HAGLER (US)

 

5. NINO BENVENUTI (ITALY)

 

 

6. GENNADY GOLOVKIN (KAZAKHSTAN)

 

7. EMILE GRIFFITH (VIRGIN ISLANDS)

 

 

8. GERALD MCCLELAN (US)

 

 

9. SERGIO MARTINEZ (ARGENTINA)

 

10. RODRIGO VALDEZ (COLOMBIA)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION IN THE HISTORY OF THE WBC

 

31 WORLD CHAMPIONS RECOGNIZED BY THE WBC OF WHICH 7 HAVE REGAINED THEIR TITLE:

 

DICK TIGER (NIGERIA)                         TWICE

EMILE GRIFFITH (VIRG. IS.)                 TWICE

NINO BENVENUTI (ITALY)                   TWICE

CARLOS MONZON (ARGENTINA)         TWICE

RODRIGO VALDEZ (COLOMBIA)          TWICE

JULIAN JACKSON (VIRG. IS.)                TWICE

KEITH HOLMES (US)                            TWICE

SERGIO GABRIEL MARTINEZ (ARG)     TWICE

SAUL ALVAREZ (MEXICO)                   TWICE

 

160 WORLD TITLE BOUTS HAVE BEEN HELD IN THE HISTORY OF THE WBC IN                      19 COUNTRIES.

THIS IS THE SECOND MIDDLEWEIGHT TITLE FIGHT THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE IN SAUDI ARABIA IN THE WBC HISTORY.

 

WORLD MIDDLEWEIGHT TITLE BOUTS BY COUNTRY IN WBC HISTORY

U.S.A.                                      96

ENGLAND                           12

ITALY                                    9

MONACO                             9

FRANCE                               6

ARGENTINA                      5

GERMANY                          5

MEXICO                               5

COLOMBIA                        2

DENMARK                          2

CANADA                              1

NIGERIA                              1

POLAND                               1

PUERTO RICO                  1

SAUDI ARABIA                 1

SPAIN                                    1

UKRAINE                             1

UZBEKISTAN                    1

YUGOSLAVIA                   1

TOTAL         160

 

 

WBC TITLE BOUTS HELD IN SAUDI ARABIA

 

 

15 BOUTS HAVE BEEN HELD IN SAUDI ARABIA IN THE ENTIRE WBC HISTORY

 

26/02/2023           BADOU JACK – ILUNGA MAKABU (VOL.)                            TKO 12            DIRIYAH     CR

12/07/2019           LERATO DLAMINI – DAVE PEÑALOSA (SILVER)              UD 12               JEDDAH      FE

08/03/2024           REY VARGAS – NICK BALL (MANDATORY)                       DREW 12        RIYADH      FE

28/10/2023           TYSON FURY – FRANCIS NGANNOU                                      SD 10                RIYADH      HE

18/05/2024           OLEKSANDR USYK (WBA/IBF/WBO) – TYSON FURY     SD 12                RIYADH      HE

18/05/2024           AGIT KABAYEL – FRANK SANCHEZ (ELIM.)                      KO 7                 RIYADH      HE

21/12/2024           OLEKSANDR USYK (WBA/IBF/WBO) – TYSON FURY      UD 12               RIYADH      HE

20/08/2022           CALLUM SMTH – MATHIEU BAUDERLIQUE                      KO 4                 JEDDAH      LH

01/06/2024           WILLY HUTCHINSON – CRAIG RICHARDS (SILVER)      UDE 12            RIYADH      LH

12/10/2024           ARTUR BETERBIEV – DMITRII BIVOL                                   MD 12              RIYADH      LH

18/05/2024           MARK CHAMBERLAIN – JOSHUA OLUWASEUN WAHAB   KO 1          RIYADH      LI

16/11/2024           WILLIAM ZEPEDA – TEVIN FARMER                                     SD 10                RIYADH,     LI

01/06/2024           HAMZAH SHEERAZ – AUSTIN WILLIAMS (SILVER)        TKO 11            RIYADH      MI

28/09/2018           CALLUM SMITH – GEORGE GROVES (DIAMOND)            KO 7                 JEDDAH      SM

22/02/2025           ARTUR BETERBIEV – DMITRII BIVOL                                   _______           RIYADH      LH

 

THIS WILL BE THE 2nd. WBC MIDDLEWEIGHT TITLE BOUT CELEBRATED IN SAUDI ARABIA IN ALL WBC HISTORY.

 

BREAKDOWN BY DIVISION:

 

 

HEAVY                             4

LIGHT HEAVY              4

LIGHT                              2

FEATHER                         2

CRUISER                          1

SUPERMIDDLE               1

MIDDLE                           1

TOTAL BOUTS       15

 

 

 

 

WBC MIDDLEWEIGHT MEMORABLES FIGHTS IN

THE HISTORY OF THE WBC

 

 

10/08/1963       DICK TIGER – GENE FULLMER                                           KO 7                    JBADAN

14/12/1964       JOEY GIARDELLO – RUBIN CARTER                                 DEC 15                PHILADELPHIA

25/04/1966       EMILE GRIFFITH – DICK TIGER                                          DEC 15                NEW YORK

17/04/1967       NINO BENVENUTI – EMILE GRIFFITH                               DEC 15                NEW YORK

28/09/1967       EMILE GRIFFITH – NINO BENVENUTI                               DEC 15                NEW YORK

07/11/1970       CARLOS MONZON – NINO BENVENUTI                            KO 12                  ROMA

25/09/1971       CARLOS MONZON – EMILE GRIFFITH                              TKO 14               BUENOS AIRES

09/02/1974       CARLOS MONZON – JOSE NAPOLES                                 TKO 7                 PARIS

26/06/1976       CARLOS MONZON – RODRIGO VALDEZ                          DEC 15                MONTECARLO

30/11/1979       VITO ANTUOFERMO -MARVIN HAGLER                         DRAW 15           LAS VEGAS

16/03/1980       ALAN MINTER – VITO ANTUOFERMO                              DEC 15                LAS VEGAS

27/09/1980       MARVIN HAGLER – ALAN MINTER                                   TKO 3                 LONDON

10/11/1983       MARVIN HAGLER – ROBERTO DURAN                             DEC 15                LAS VEGAS

15/04/1985       MARVIN HAGLER – THOMAS HEARNS                             KO 3                    LAS VEGAS

10/03/1986       MARVIN HAGLER – JOHN MUGABI                                   KO 11                  LAS VEGAS

06/04/1987       RAY LEONARD – MARVIN HAGLER                                  DEC 12                LAS VEGAS

24/02/1989       ROBERTO DURAN – IRAN BARKLEY                                DEC 12                ATLANTIC CITY

08/05/1993       GERALD MCCLELLAN – JULIAN JACKSON                     KO 5                    LAS VEGAS

14/04/2001       BERNARD HOPKINS – KEITH HOLMES                             DEC 12                NEW YORK

29/09/2001       BERNARD HOPKINS – FELIX TRINIDAD                           KO 12                  NEW YORK

18/09/2004       BERNARD HOPKINS – OSCAR DE LA HOYA                    KO 9                    LAS VEGAS

03/12/2005       JERMAIN TAYLOR – BERNARD HOPKINS                        DEC 12                LAS VEGAS

29/09/2007       KELLY PAVLIK – JERMAIN TAYLOR                                 TKO 7                 ATLANTIC CITY

20/11/2010       SERGIO MARTINEZ – PAUL WILLIAMS                            KO 2                    ATLANTIC CITY

15/09/2012       SERGIO MARTINEZ – JULIO CESAR CHAVEZ JR.           UD 12                  LAS VEGAS

07/06/2014       MIGUEL COTTO – SERGIO MARTINEZ                              TKO 9                 NEW YORK

21/11/2015       SAUL ALVAREZ – MIGUEL COTTO                                    UD 12                  LAS VEGAS

07/05/2016       SAUL ALVAREZ – AMIR KHAN (VOLUNTARY)              KO 6                    LAS VEGAS

16/09/2017       GENNADY GOLOVKIN – SAUL ALVAREZ                        DREW MD 12    LAS VEGAS

15/09/2018       SAUL ALVAREZ – GENNADY GOLOVKIN                        MD 12                 LAS VEGAS

04/05/2019       SAUL ALVAREZ – DANIEL JACOBS                                   UD 12                  LAS VEGAS

26/09/2020       JERMALL CHARLO – SERGEY DERENVYANCHENKO UD 12                   UNCASVILLE

 

 

Meddling with middling distance

By James Blears

WBC middleweight champion Carlos Adames defends his Green and Gold Belt against lanky Hamzah Sheeraz on a night, which will be long remembered at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, SaudI Arabia on Saturday February 22^nd.

It`s part of a star-studded gala of scraps and scrapes, led by the much-anticipated rematch of Artur Beterbiev Vs Dmitry Bivol for the Undisputed light heavyweight title.  Enigmatic southpaw genius Shakur Stevenson is defending his WBC lightweight title aon the same bill. The card is being dubbed: ‘’The Last Crescendo.’’ From it will emerge the ‘’Sartorial Seven.’’

The Adames Vs Hamzah fight is a collision to watch out for, as it`s a sure-fire molten slugfest. Bet the house it won`t go the distance! Not the way that these two men fight. Each will go for broke and there will be a point when caution is thrown to the wind.

 

Both love nothing better than to attack flat out in order to flatten, seldom taking a step backwards. But their uncompromising styles do markedly differ. With Carlos, it`s inevitably an in- your face war of attrition.  He loves nothing better than to batter a foe toe to toe, from pillar to post, hurling two fisted cobblestone punches in high volume clusters.

This non- stop cascade and a deceptively better than expected pivotal defence involving parrying, harrying and marrying cat like reflexes, means that he lands considerably more than comes back the other way. It affords any given opponent mostly on the receiving end, little time to think, consider or contemplate their next move, as they`re in the midst of a maelstrom, fighting the fight of their lives.

 

There are slow starters, but Carlos who is from the Dominican Republic, but now based in Washington Heights, New York, isn’t one of them.  Fast track, he`s like a stoked up express train from the off. He`s a dynamo and a windmill, ready to sail into any given opponent.  Standing five feet eleven inches tall with a reach of seventy-three inches, he doesn`t need to fight this way, he just loves the onslaught style. With a record of 24-1, 18 KO`s, it`s amassed him a KO ratio of seventy five percent.

Hamzah who is from Ilford, skirting London in England, is undefeated with a bristling record of 21-0, 17 KO`s. His KO tally amounts to eighty one percent.  For a middleweight he`s a giant, standing six feet three inches tall with a reach of seventy- five inches. Height wise, he has a four inches advantage over Carlos. Reach wise he has but a two inches extra wingspan.

The son of a former professional cricketer, by Jiminy, Hamzah really middles when taking down opponents, with battery style precision. Hamzah likes to pot shot opponents from middle range, softening them up with searing and sinking body shots, rattling their ribcage and liver, then moving upstairs. Still only twenty- five, which is five years younger than the champion, if he progresses, fills out more and bulks up a tad, a fight against similarly lofty and also hard-hitting super-middleweight- now light heavyweight David ‘’Red Flag’’ Benavidez would be a thriller in Riyadh… or elsewhere.

Being so big for the division his legs aren’t as oak like sturdy as those of Carlos.  In winning the vacant WBC Silver Title against rugged Argentinian Francisco Emanuel Torres, he got careless and was dropped, but got up and finished the fight with a TKO in the fifth, having decked Torres three times.  He couldn`t afford to make such a mistake against Carlos Adames, who hits considerably harder and doesn`t tend to let rivals off the hook, once he`s in the driving seat and has run over them, bulldozer style. A mistake of that magnitude at this rarefied level, would be difficult to reverse.

 

Hamzah is no stranger to Riyadh. As recently as September he was there to successfully defend his Silver and Commonwealth Crowns, adding the European belt, which he`s since relinquished to go for Absolute Green and Gold. In that fight he TKO`d Tyler Denny in two blistering rounds.

Hamzah is well aware of the magnitude of the task ahead of him saying; ‘’I`m under no illusions of what is in front of me, but I`m ready to do the business. Ever since I was eight, I wanted t win the Green and Gold Belt. If I`m not ready now, I`ll never be. I`m still a baby in the sport, but on February 22^nd I get my biggest opportunity. It will be my toughest test to date.’’

Carlos has notched big wins against higher quality opposition, namely Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Juan Macias Montiel and Julian Williams. He did come unstuck once, losing a lethargic MD to Patrick Teixeira for the WBO super-welterweight Interim title, afterwards going up to middleweight, where he doesn`t have to struggle with the scales. It paid dividends as in his next fight he won the WBC Interim middleweight title with a TKO over Juan Carlos Montiel in the third round.

Carlos was upgraded to Absolute Champion, after Jermall Charlo became Champion in recess.  So far, Carlos has successfully defended his laurels once, winning a UD over Terrell Gausha last June.

The key to this fight will be if Carlos can navigate and negate the distance, transforming this into a close quarters eyeball to eyeball war of optics. Hamzah`s success would lie in blockbusters to the body in order to blunt the ferocity of the champion and then measuring him with longer straight-armed artillery.

It`s going to be a battle of willpower. Who can bend plus break the other`s?  A similar middleweight classic transpired, when Marvelous Marvin Hagler encountered John Mugabi. It was Marvin`s tenth successful defence of his WBC middleweight title. His previous fight had been the blockbuster KO victory against Tommy Hearns with the most ferocious opening round in modern boxing history. One fight after taking on and finally overcoming Mugabi, he lost his crown in another classic, against Sugar Ray Leonard. The controversy will always rage against the ‘’Dying of the fight, concerning that good night.’’

Against John Mugabi, Marvin faced his sternest test. John met him head on and headlong, often returning punches with interest swelling up Marvin`s right eye.  The secret to Marvin`s success was his ramrod right southpaw jab, big left hooks, fantastic physical condition and his utter determination to win, come what may.

He walked through a wall of hell for leather hellfire, to impose his own will on a grimly determined opponent, who initially refused to concede any ground. However, slowly but surely John Mugabi bent, buckled and finally folded, going down battered, exhausted, psychologically bereft and comprehensively overcome, from a final finishing touch barrage in round eleven to be counted out at one minute and twenty- nine seconds.  Marvin was NOT to be denied.

It doesn`t seem like it, but that was on March 1Oth 1986, at Caesar`s Palace in Las Vegas. Long ago and far away from Riyadh. But I feel that similar principals are relevant and will apply as long as this upcoming fight lasts.

When Carlos Adames and Hamzah Sheeraz fight, it will be a poker hot and poker- faced test of firepower, but also, very much a severe and exacting examination of willpower laid bare.  He who can and will see it through right to the end to apply the punctuation mark thus halting the hostilities, most probably before the twelfth and final bell tolls.