Davis vs Barrios: Carlos Adames vs Alexis Salazar added to PPV card, replaces Williams-Mendoza

Saturday’s Gervonta Davis-headlined Showtime PPV has a new fight, with Carlos Adames taking on Alexis Salazar in a 10-round bout. The fight replaces the previously scheduled Julian Williams-Brian Mendoza bout, which is off with Williams suffering an elbow injury.

Adames (19-1, 15 KO) was slated to fight on July 21 in the Dominican Republic, where he was last out on March 12 in a win over Bryan Medina. That was his first fight since Nov. 2019, when he was upset by Patrick Teixeira in what was functionally a vacant WBO title fight at 154 lbs.

The 27-year-old Adames was pushed as a prospect by Top Rank for a while, but the loss to Teixeira cut down the hype. But he’s a solid figher at the least, someone a promoter with lots of TV slots to fill (that’s any major promoter these days) should be happy to have around.

The 25-year-old Salazar (23-3, 9 KO) is a Mexican middleweight, and hasn’t fought as a junior middle since 2016. There wasn’t a weight limit in the press release here, but I’d guess it’s 160 or a catchweight, probably not a firm 154. Salazar is riding a 15-fight win streak that dates back to 2015, but his opposition in that period has been pretty ... bad. I was going to try to think of a nice, more diplomatic word for it, but it’s been pretty bad. Club fight level. That doesn’t mean Salazar can’t fight, it just means he hasn’t been proving much.

The rest of the pay-per-view card remains the same, with Gervonta Davis facing Mario Barrios in the 140 lb main event, plus the very intriguing Erickson Lubin vs Jeison Rosario co-feature at 154, and Batyr Akhmedov vs Argenis Mendez in a WBA 140 eliminator.