There is so much to like about the speedy and smooth work of junior-welterweight contender Adam Azim.
He will now be looking toward the January fight between domestic rival Dalton Smith and Subriel Matias in New York having stopped a game and gritty Kurt Scoby in the 12th round at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
Azim improved to 14-0 (11 KOs) with a dominant and controlled display against a fighter who had tried to get into his head all week.
But Azim, trained by Shane McGuigan, stayed cool and calm. Much like stablemate Chris Billam-Smith, antagonised earlier in the year by Brandon Glanton, Azim let his fists do the talking as Scoby dropped to 18-2 (16 KOs).
Azim got his rapid jab moving early. Scoby wore his gloves by his ears and there was little coming back from the American in the opening stages. Azim started to fire a right to the body in the second and Scoby was beginning to throw only reluctantly, knowing that Azim’s hands would be coming back in his direction.
“I need you to attack a little bit more,” Scoby was told in the corner before round three, and he opened the third with a clean right hand that clipped Azim on the jaw.
The heavily-muscled Scoby listened and had a better third round but Azim was picking the better shows, including a left to the body in the fourth and a left uppercut in the fifth.
“He hasn’t won a round, just stay nice and poised,” trainer McGuigan told Azim before the sixth. “The more he forces it, the better it is for you.”
Slough’s Azim, promoted by Boxxer’s Ben Shalom, was dominant behind his accurate and blurring jab in that round.
In the seventh, Scoby’s mission became all-but impossible when he was docked a point for clubbing Azim on the back of the head, and Azim only started to throw more when the action resumed, landing a left hook to the body and a left hook upstairs to follow soon after.
Scoby’s output was reduced to rare single shots but Azim was flowing forward and peppering the clearly durable American with jabs and lefts into his body. Scoby waved Azim in during the ninth, but it was merely gamesmanship because he was a mile behind on points.
It was one-sided without being a beatdown – at that point. Scoby hadn’t won a minute of a round and Azim knew he had it in the bag from the early going.
There was a moment in the 11th, after Azim crashed in a right hand as Scoby threw a left hook, when Scoby had to hold and fight through the subsequent fog, but Scoby saw out the session and it is safe to say that by that point, he was no longer beckoning Azim in.
In the 12th, Azim proved he was in no mood to let Scoby off the hook. Scoby had been giving Azim a hard time this week, confronting him in the hotel, at the public workout and arguing with him at the press conference.
To that end, Azim didn’t only sit back, he turned the screws. He fired away with both hands and really started to break Scoby up with a dazzling variety and all Scoby could do was sink to one knee. He rose unhappily but referee Howard Foster called it off after 2-01 of the 12th.
