Top British prospect Hamzah Sheeraz is prepared for a firefight when he defends his Commonwealth middleweight title against Liam Williams this Saturday at the Copper Box Arena, London.
The towering 6’3″ boxer has secured three second-round stoppages in his past four fights, however, he stressed that Williams’ world title experience would present his toughest challenge yet.
“He is my hardest opponent to date,” the 24-year-old told TNT Sports Boxing earlier today, “but that has been the case for my last five fights. I have been progressively stepping up each fight and there comes a time in a fighters career that he has take a fight like this.
“There are few fighters better than Liam. He will come hungry and on his A-game, but so will I… If I was to stand here and disrespect him, though, it would be a bit silly of me.”
Williams enters Saturday’s contest with more than double the rounds under his belt than Sheeraz (148rds/72rds) and has shared the ring with world champions including Liam Smith, Chris Eubank Jr, and Demetrius Andrade.
Sheeraz also highlighted his opponent’s impressive power as a potential threat; the Welshman earned his twentieth career knockout last time out when he stopped Florin Cardos in under a round last November.
The pair were set to meet on December 2 at London’s Copperbox Arena before Sheeraz suffered a perforated ear drum during sparring, which he revealed has impacted his training ahead of Saturday’s rescheduled date.
“It is all good now and it has healed up, but (when it happened) I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t bounce or move because it messed up my balance. So, I just had to wait until I could fly again, come home and recover.”
The Slough-based fighter will be defending his Commonwealth and WBC Silver middleweight titles which he claimed via second-round stoppages against River Wilson-Bent and Dmytro Mytrofanov, respectively.
Sheerez and Williams form the main event of a stacked Queensberry Promotions card which also features lightweight Sam Noakes defending his Commonwealth title against Lewis Sylvester in the co-main event, alongside fights for promotional staples Anthony Yarde, Karol Itauma, Masood Abdullah and Umar Khan.
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