Williams (19-1, 13 KOs), who will challenge for the WBC middleweight title Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, claimed Adames could’ve finished a fatigued Sheeraz in the later rounds. The prevailing public opinion was that Adames (24-1-1, 18 KOs) did enough to beat the British contender February 22, but the Dominican champion settled for a controversial split draw. “The thing that I didn’t see from [Adames] in that fight was the true wanting to finish Hamzah,” Williams told The Ring. “I think it was more that it was a good performance, and he rightfully retained his belt. But I just felt like it was more of a duck-and-cover approach, more of a safety-first approach, than it was him laying it all on the line to make this statement.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzdrjTGwtUU England’s Sheeraz (22-0-1, 18 KOs), the only opponent to beat Williams, defeated Adames by a point, 115-114, on the card of Italian judge Guido Cavalleri. American judge Barry Lindenman scored 10 rounds for Adames (118-110). Mexican judge Omar Mintun Sr. scored the 160-pound title fight a draw (114-114). “I thought there was times he really coulda put the icing on the cake or really went for it,” Williams said. “I feel like there was a moment in that fight where he had to make the decision to go and really make that statement, where it wasn’t left to the judges, where it wasn’t allowed to be a controversial decision.” Williams hurt Sheeraz with a straight left early in the second round of their middleweight match in June 2024. Sheeraz regained his senses, seized control, traded hard shots with Williams, dropped him with a right hand in the 10th round and won by 11th-round TKO. Sheeraz scored an even more impressive knockout of Edgar Berlanga, whom he stopped in the fifth round of his super middleweight debut July 12 in the main event of “The Ring III” event. He won’t move back down to middleweight, but Milwaukee’s Williams believes beating Adames would generate interest in a rematch with Sheeraz, even if it needs to be contested at a higher weight. “That’s why this is a great fight,” Williams said, “because it’s also an opportunity for me to even that score or get back in that conversation, in a sense, where it would make sense for us to run it back. If I win this fight, he had a draw with Adames, and it [was] a tossup on the cards, and I’m a much more developed fighter, world champion, have something that is appealing to him.” DAZN will distribute “The Ring 6,” headlined by Ring/WBO junior welterweight champ Teofimo Lopez and WBC lightweight champ Shakur Stevenson, on pay-per-view to non-subscribers in the United States ($69.99) and the United Kingdom (£24.99). It is included in DAZN’s Ultimate monthly plan for subscribers ($44.99 in the U.S.; £24.99 in the UK). Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxWq_naQ4fU