With Adames (24-1-1, 18 KOs) giving his native Dominican Republic plenty of pride with each performance, DAZN News looks back at five of his best fight performances to reach this point.

Battling Hamzah Sheeraz to an intriguing split draw in Riyadh; February 2025

Carlos Adames overcame a pedestrian start to build a rally behind slippery movement and pressuring combinations to the head and body, allowing him to own a majority of the second half of the fight. By the end of the 12 rounds, Adames nearly had doubled Sheeraz up in power shots.

Yet, judges scored it 118-110 in his favor, 115-114 for Sheeraz and 114-114 toward a controversial split draw. Many critics and fans watching thought Adames did enough to earn the victory behind his mid-to-late volume, though the Dominican fighter still retained his title as a result of the draw.

Recording his first title defense in unanimous decision; June 2024

Adames took a gritty fighter in Terrell Gausha and dominated his way toward a first defense of his WBC middleweight world title. The champ was seemingly setting Gausha up for a potential knockout shot when he hit the challenger with a low blow in the 11 ^th round, inadvertently halting his own momentum.

Judges inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas still gave him a rousing unanimous decision by the way of the scores, 119-109, 118-110 and 118-110.

Adames stops ‘J Rock’ in the ninth round; June 2023

Julian ‘J Rock’ Williams was a former unified junior middleweight world champion who shared the ring with the likes of Jermall Charlo, Ishe Smith, Jarrett Hurd and Jeison Rosario, providing Adames with his most stiffest challenger to date. The fact that it was for Adames’ recently-won WBC interim title only upped the ante for this 160-pound collision.

What Adames might have lacked in ring savvy and experience, he certainly made up for with determination. The Dominican fighter doggedly bulldozed his way into the pocket and dramatically changed the complexion of the fight before Williams was able to mount a comeback to take the eighth round.

‘J Rock’ peppered Adames and controlled the ninth until a right hand followed by a left hook moments later stunned the veteran. A few unanswered subsequent shots from Adames and the referee halted the action, giving him the ninth-round TKO. Although the ref stopped the bout a bit prematurely, there was no doubt that Adames hurt Williams in the round and pieced together one of his best performances overall.

Being crowned WBC interim middleweight champ in style; October 2022

Having built himself up to this point, Adames had earned his shot at the WBC interim middleweight title. To get it, though, he had to find a way to get past a gritty, hard-hitting Juan Macias Montiel who fought the likes of Jaime Munguia, Hugo Centeno Jr., James Kirkland and Jermall Charlo to get to this point.

Well, Adames showed that he was more prepared to ace this test as he blasted Montiel with a buffet of left and right hands before earning the spectacular third-round knockout. If the boxing world had been sleeping on Adames prior to this juncture, consider this showing its wakeup call.

Overcoming a rugged Sergiy Derevyanchenko; December 2021

Sergiy Derevyanchenko was 0-for-3 in middleweight title challenges, falling short against Daniel Jacobs, Gennadiy Golovkin and Jermall Charlo, but certainly not for any lack of effort. Jacobs edged him by split decision and some felt like he actually did enough to defeat ‘GGG’ — both fights taking place in New York City.

Regardless, the rugged Ukrainian easily marked Adames’ toughest challenge. The Dominican contender greeted that challenge by coming out as the aggressor, taking an early lead, before staving off most of Derevyanchenko’s rally to produce a hard-fought majority decision (95-95, 97-93 and 96-94), putting himself in position for bigger fights.