Adam Azim relinquishes his European super lightweight title
Top prospect Adam Azim has now officially vacated his European super lightweight title after being ordered to fight Dalton Smith in a mandatory defence.
22-year-old Azim was ordered to defend the EBU belt to mandatory challenger Smith, who is an outright Lonsdale belt owner. Having collected English, British and Commonwealth tithes, the European would have completed the set for ‘Thunder’ Smith.However, the Sheffield star recently defeated Jose Zepeda to take a step up to world level.
Instead, ‘The Assassin’ is planning on facing Harlem Eubank, promoter Eddie Hearn has revealed today: “You can sugar-coat what you want, Adam Azim has ducked Dalton Smith.”
Not everyone shares the Matchroom Boxing promoter’s strong opinion, however, as you can see from some other opinions below.
Reactions
Ashley Theophane: “You gotta choose what path you want to go down. At the end of the day it’s your career and you gotta be happy with decisions you made. F everyone’s opinion.”
Enzo Maccarinelli: “Azim relinquishing the belt rather than fighting Dalton is a wise move by BOXXER, it’s not a 50/50 at moment, Smith too good and experienced at the moment, Azim hasn’t got the knowledge to go with his skills, it’s a move any of the promoters would make if that was them in the position.”
Tim Rickson: “Frazer Clarke was in a similar position to this last year, when BOXXER withdrew him from purse bids for the British title with Fabio Wardley, but their willingness to bide their time and take the right fight at the right time paid off, as proven by the epic British battle we witnessed last weekend. I can’t see anything wrong with this move from Azim. Guiding a boxer towards a world title is a process which requires very careful and clever matchmaking. Josh Taylor’s matchmaking to a world title was pretty much perfect, so Azim and his team are only being smart about it.”