Austin “Ammo” Williams admits it was a tricky proposition to have to fight a friend of his on short notice. Williams was originally supposed to face Etinosa Oliha on Saturday in an IBF middleweight eliminator, only for the Italian to withdraw due to an eye issue picked up in his pre-fight exams.
In stepped Ivan Vazquez, an unbeaten but untested Mexican-American from Houston, who took the fight on two days' notice.
Though Vazquez gave a spirited effort, particularly with his body punching, Williams was too much to deal with, dropping Vazquez with a right uppercut in the ninth round, leading to the stoppage.
Williams admits it was difficult fighting someone he considers a friend.
“I've been knowing this dude for years and years and years and years. That's my guy, man. I know it's supposed to be a ruthless sport or whatever, but it was just a total switch in the gear and the mindset,” said Williams.
“I had to knock out my friend.”
Williams, 19-1 (13 KOs), says the body punching from Vazquez, now 11-1-2 (8 KOs), didn’t hurt him too much, but it did help set up the uppercut that scored the knockdown, as he saw Vazquez dropping straight down - into the path of uppercuts.
Next, Williams, who has now won three straight since his lone defeat, an eleventh round stoppage against Hamzah Sheeraz in June of 2024, wants to fight for a middleweight belt.
“I’m ready,” said Williams. “I invested so much into this camp, and I have to come here and fight my guy, but it's hard. It's hard. I'm ready for this stuff that really matters.”
Vazquez, 31, was originally training to fight in a six-round bout, and appeared to fall apart as the rounds went on in his first scheduled ten-rounder.
“Obviously, as you're sparring, you're fighting certain rounds. If I was fighting six rounds, I'm not gonna spar 10 rounds, maybe once in a while. I mean, eight rounds, here and there, but there's no way I'm shooting 10 rounds for a six round fight. So the mindset completely changed. Obviously, I trained for six rounds,” said Vazquez.
Vazquez says he wasn’t surprised that the fight turned out to be so entertaining, as their sparring sessions in training together had all been head turners.
“The sparring sessions that we did was always…everybody stops, watches. So this is what we did at the gym the whole time. So some of you guys got to see that is exactly what happened,” said Vazquez.
