Matchroom outbids AGON Sports to win rights to Etinosa Oliha-Austin Williams IBF title eliminator
Austin “Ammo” Williams won’t have to worry about fighting on another promoter’s show.
BS has confirmed that Matchroom Boxing has secured the rights to Williams’ IBF-ordered middleweight title eliminator against Italy’s Etionisa Oliha. Matchroom submitted a winning bid of $233,333, outpacing AGON Sports’ $215,313 during Tuesday’s hearing held via video conference.
Williams has been with Matchroom and his manager Sam Katkovski since his pro debut in 2019, while Oliha is signed to AGON. The two promoters were the lone participants during Tuesday’s session.
Oliha and AGON will receive 75 per cent of the winning bid – just under $175,000 – as the higher ranked IBF middleweight contender. The remaining 25 per cent – $58,333.25 – would traditionally go to Williams, though he will likely receive a fight purse in line with his contractual guarantee as a Matchroom-signed fighter. A date and location is still to be confirmed.
The development puts Oliha in a similar situation to during his previously ordered eliminator, though with his promoter no longer in control. The unbeaten middleweight contender was on course earlier in 2025 to next face Kyrone Davis, 19-3-1 (6 KOs).
The two sides previously reached an agreement for a fight to have taken place in the spring in Italy.
Davis fights under the banner of Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), whose handlers sought to have the fight relocated to the United States, which proved enough for the IBF to no longer consider Davis as eligible for the fight.
Davis subsequently announced his retirement, only to resurface on the undercard of the forthcoming PBC on Prime Video show featuring Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo in separate bouts on May 31.
That development, in turn, opened the door for the 28-year-old Williams. The fight with Oliha was ordered just days after the Milwaukee-bred, Houston-based contender outpointed Patrice Volny atop the March 15 DAZN show from Orlando, Florida – the second consecutive victory for Williams following an 11th-round stoppage defeat by Hamzah Sheeraz, 21-0-1 (17 KOs), in June 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Williams is moving within one more win of his title shot. The same, of course, can be said for his next potential opponent.
Oliha, 26, moved into contention after a third-round knockout of Alexander Pavlov in September 2024 at AGON Sportspark in Charlottenburg, Germany. That was the fifth consecutive fight in Germany for Oliha, given AGON’s home base. However, the plan was to return to Italy for the final elimination bout had the Davis fight moved forward.
Rather than a true home game, Oliha will have to hit the road. The potential winner will become the IBF mandatory challenger. Janibek Alimkhanuly, 16-0 (11 KOs), holds the belt along with the WBO title, both of which he defended via a sensational fifth-round knockout of the then-unbeaten Anauel Ngamissengue on April 5 in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Alimkhanuly can still take a voluntary title fight while the details regarding his next mandatory challenger are determined.