Champion forced to pull out of title defence.
The Dominican Republic’s Carlos Adames (24-1-1, 18 KOs) was set to defend his WBC middleweight crown against America’s Austin ‘Ammo’ Williams on the undercard of the blockbuster event featuring Shakur Stevenson’s challenge of Teofimo Lopez and his WBO and The Ring super-lightweight trinkets.
This was to be Adames’s first fight since his contentious draw with Hamzah Sheeraz in February of 2025. Sheeraz himself owns a stoppage over Austin Williams.
Since the defeat to Sheeraz, he has fought three times and won all three. This competition, though, was several levels below Adames, whose stock rose following his showing against Sheeraz.
Up until that point, Sheeraz had looked like something of a wrecking machine, having three stoppage victories in a row over Liam Williams, Austin Williams, and Tyler Denny. Adames, though, gave his much taller opponent many problems, and Sheeraz moved up in weight shortly afterwards (where he has since beaten Edgar Berlanga and is expected to challenge Diego Pacheco for the vacant WBO super-middleweight title).
Afterwards, Adames was reported to be in talks with two-belt middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly for a unification fight. These talks ultimately broke down, however, and Alimkhanuly instead chose to fight Erislandy Lara, the holder of the last major title at the weight.
However, Alimkhanuly was forced to pull out of the title match due to testing positive for meldonium prior to the bout taking place.
And Carlos Adames has now also had to pull out of a title match.
Sources state that Adames became ill with dehydration while attempting to make weight and was hospitalised as a result, thus forcing the bout with Williams to be pulled hours before the weigh-in was to take place.
Williams is set to remain on the card, with a replacement opponent currently being sought.
A similar situation occurred with Janibek Alimkhanuly, Adames’s former opponent-to-be, when he was set to defend his titles against Andrei Mikhailovich in 2024. On that occasion, the champion from Kazakhstan collapsed while attempting to make weight and was taken to hospital with severe dehydration.
Such occurrences shine a light on the efforts fighters go through to make the championship weight.
We wish Carlos Adames a speedy recovery.
‼️ Carlos Adames has been forced to withdraw from his WBC middleweight title defense against Austin ‘Ammo’ Williams at The Ring VI due to illness, The Ring has learned.
According to Williams’ manager Sam Katkovski, a replacement opponent is being sought so Williams can stay on… pic.twitter.com/3AahM8Kjcv
— Ring Magazine (@ringmagazine) January 30, 2026
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