Reborn under Andy Lee, Hamzah Sheeraz is ready to take on America
When you have your promoter and arguably the most powerful man in boxing come to your corner and shout at you during a fight, you know things aren’t going well.
Hamzah Sheeraz was largely expected to get past Carlos Adames in February and win the WBC middleweight title. He had been touted as Britain’s next big star and one of the jewels in the crown of Frank Warren’s stable.
But, as the fight progressed, it was clear Sheeraz was struggling. So much so, he had Warren and Turki Alalsheikh barking instructions at him in late in the fight.
“I ran round to the corner and said, ‘listen, you don’t win these next three rounds, you’ve lost it,'” Warren recalled to media ahead of Sheeraz’s return to the ring on Saturday.
It ended in a draw. No belt, no crowning moment.
It was later revealed that Sheeraz sustained a broken hand in the fight and was seriously struggling to make the 160-pound weight limit before it. Regardless, wholesale changes followed.
A timely move up to super middleweight, where he takes on Edgar Berlanga in New York this week [4 a.m. Sunday BST] was the first step. He also changed his team, relocating to Ireland to train with Andy Lee, arguably the best in the business right now.
Whether the draw with Adames was a wake-up call or just a bad night at the office, Sheeraz is back this weekend and looking to make a statement; out to prove he is still Britain’s next big star by announcing himself in America.
“You couldn’t ask for a better fight to kind of come out to the U.S fans for, do you know what I mean?” Sheeraz told media ahead of the Ring III card at Louis Armstrong Stadium.
“You couldn’t ask for a better fight and someone who’s got a loud mouth talks a lot of smack. It just brings a lot more attention to the fight as well. So, all I’ve got to do is go in there, perform and it makes my job easier.”
Before the Adames fight, Sheeraz had passed every test with flying colours and had a 15-fight knockout streak behind him.
His talent is obvious.
The link-up with Lee is about taking him to the next level, as well as a change of scenery. The 26-year-old says the move to Dublin, a far cry from his previous base of Los Angeles, has been “amazing.”
“It’s been brilliant, it’s been refreshing, refreshing because I was over in LA for about four or five years and things started to get very repetitive,” Sheeraz explains. “Once things start being repetitive, you can fall into bad habits and bad rhythms and yeah, the change of scenery and Dublin itself, it’s been amazing.
“Normally, when you go to new coaches, some things feel forced, certain conversations feel forced. He’s a very, very, very sure and confident man because, you know what he’s done, he has been there and done it.”
Lee’s track record as a coach, as well as his success as a world champion boxer himself, speaks for itself.
He has turned the career of heavyweight Joseph Parker around and, more recently, linked up with Ben Whittaker after his first fight against Liam Cameron ended in a controversial draw.
After a few weeks working with Lee, Whittaker won the rematch with a clinical Round 2 knockout.
Just as Whittaker did, Sheeraz came across a moment when he needed to switch things up, and Berlanga will prove an excellent test on his return.
“You find out things about yourself that you need to change or you need to calm down or you need to improve to be a genuine contender at world level,” he says.
“So hopefully come [the fight] I’ll put in the performance of my career and I can look back at that fight as a blessing in disguise.”
Warren will want a less eventful night for himself, but knows how big the challenge will be in New York.
“He’s gone straight in the deep end. It’s a tough fight,” Warren says.
“He’s in with Berlanga who fancies himself. He’s an on top, bully type of fighter, [Sheeraz] is in his back yard. He has to go out here, be the boss, and put him in his place and I think he can do that.”