Carlos Adames wins a dud against Gerome Warburton

The frustration surrounding the career of Carlos Adames won’t be abated by his unanimous decision win over Gerome Warburton in a 165lbs catchweight bout Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Adames, 25-1-1 (18 KOs), did his part in the 10-round non-title bout, begrudgingly but dutifully chasing after Wales’ Warburton, 18-2-2 (2 KOs), who moved heaven and Earth to avoid engaging. A wide points win – 100-90, 99-91, 98-92 – went to Adames, if very little else.

The staging of the fight was off from the start. Adames, a middleweight titleholder coming off a convincing win over Austin Williams in March, was making his Zuffa Boxing debut in Riyadh. A catchweight bout against an unranked fighter ensured the WBC wouldn’t sanction it as a title fight, though Adames would have been stripped of his belt had he lost to Warburton.

It was unclear who this fight – a main event, no less – served before the opening bell. Ten rounds later, it was impossible to know.

The best that can be said of Warburton as a world-class opponent is that he has been durable (stopped only once in his career), and his prime directive Saturday – even more so than a win – seemed to be preventing knockout No. 2 coming against Adames.

As Warburton danced out of reach, Adames turned up the pressure as best he could, landing here and there – though little of consequence. He targeted the body, seemingly attempting to slow Warburton’s feet and limit the angles on his escape routes. He won rounds purely on optics.

At no time was Adames in any danger, and the same can almost be said about Warburton – which speaks to the latter’s great conflict-aversion efforts.

“I think he was just in the ring to survive,” Adames, a Dominican-born Las Vegas fight, said in the ring afterward. “He wasn’t really here to win the fight. He could have done more, but he wasn’t really a match. I think he could have done more, but I think he was just surviving.”