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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is vying to extend his more than two decades of rule in an

It is a chilling statement uttered with the most flattering of intentions: “We’re dealing with a freak.” Those are the words of boxing promoter Ben Shalom, speaking over Zoom, pacing back and forth in a room that appears to have just a few small windows – just below the ceiling, along the back wall. You’d think he was a military commander fruitlessly planning how to take down Godzilla, but the Boxxer chief is in fact on the side of the monster in question here. And that monster is Adam Azim. It might seem an odd way to describe the 5ft 11in, 20-year-old super-lightweight, but put a pair of boxing gloves on the Briton and the results really are terrifying. “I remember when I was four years old,” the monster tells The Independent while lurking in a hallway inside Shane McGuigan’s gym. “My dad made me learn the basics at the back of the garden in Slough, he got me a speed ball in the garage. He used to put weighted hand wraps on me and make me do shadow boxing for like 20 minutes straight. Even when I was punching the speed ball, he used to put ankle weights on my legs and hands. I was very fast when I was young.” He is even faster now, his speed perhaps his greatest asset at this point in a fledgling professional career that is expected to grow into a captivating one. “When we saw him for the first time, we knew he was special,” says Shalom. “Everyone in boxing was talking about Adam Azim for a long time. We knew that a lot of promoters were going to be looking at him, and that we needed to secure him for a long time, because we believe that he can be literally one of the biggest stars that the country has seen – a household name. “We want him on the screens all the time. He almost reminds me of Amir Khan in 2005. Those were some of my earliest memories of boxing, Amir was boxing every couple of months on ITV and drawing huge audiences. We want to emulate that and take that to a new level.” Azim is still just 8-0, but with six emphatic knockout wins. “He looks at a lot of the world champions and believes that he would beat them in his next fight,” Shalom says, unquestionably serious, his eyes shark-like. “And Shane believes that. This is not a joke. “It’s high-risk, low-reward [for opponents]. I cannot tell you how feared this guy is; there’s world champions right now who would no way take a fight with him, even on a full camp’s notice, and I know that for a fact. We’re dealing with a freak, we’re dealing with a talent that you don’t see very often.” There is almost something humorous about the contrast between Shalom’s – clearly credible – observations and the unassuming way in which Azim speaks. He is, after all, just 20. But his life is not that of the average 20-year-old. Azim, like his highly-touted, 22-year-old brother Hassan, has been reared to be a champion. We discuss his love of action films – “The Raid, The Raid 2, all the Mission: Impossible films, I’m into DC and Marvel” – but that is the only extracurricular pastime that Azim allows himself. And it has been that way since he was young. Well, even younger. “I didn’t go out much,” he says. “I was always dedicated to boxing. I’d go swimming, cinema, or just chill out at a mate’s house. I didn’t really get to go out and explore, which... You’ve got to make sacrifices in your life. “Even now, I could go out and do a lot of stuff, but I’m just dedicated to my craft, because you can’t switch off in boxing. Footballers can do that because they have a team. All I really do on a weekend off is go for a walk, go round my mates’, or go to the cinema. That’s the same routine I’d done when I was younger. I ain’t gonna change it now, because you don’t wanna go the wrong way. I’ve got a goal to achieve, that’s all I wanna do.” Was there ever a threat of Azim going the ‘wrong way’? “I only went to secondary school for three months, because I was messing about, and my dad actually took me out and made me do home schooling so I could focus on boxing,” Azim says. “I believe if I’d gone to that school... I don’t know what I’d be doing now. My dad did the right thing, I thank my dad a lot for that.” Azim does seem genuinely grateful to be on this path, and to his dad for setting him on it. “He got me where I am today. He noticed I had that fighting spirit. In my family, our cousins and uncles are all fighters. I was meant to be a fighter – I can just feel it, you know?” Shalom agrees. “All he wants to do is fight; he would do it for free, he absolutely loves it. I’ve never met someone as focused as he is. It’s sometimes hard for Shane to calm him down. “It does take a lot for someone to become a star in boxing, there are so many elements that you can get wrong, [but] he’s made some really good decisions early on. His dad knows the game inside-out, and they’ve been preparing for this moment since he was about six years old. It literally is something that they knew was gonna come; they planned meticulously for the last 15 years. “You see tennis stars who’ve been taken around the world since they were young, they were almost bred to be No 1 in their sport. I really believe that’s how Adam has grown up. “He’s also a person who wants to stand for the right things and be the face of British boxing. We think he’s gonna be the one who really becomes synonymous with British boxing over the next five to 10 years.” You’d be a brave man to bet against a monster like this. Read More Built to survive, Dillian Whyte is fighting back and still here Dillian Whyte: ‘I was disappointed to lose to Tyson Fury, but if I lost 10 quid I’d be disappointed’ The Independent’s pound-for-pound boxing rankings Boxxer’s Ben Shalom: ‘I sacrificed my twenties, I sacrificed absolutely everything’ Leigh Wood and Chris Billam-Smith win world titles with victories over familiar foes Leigh Wood given message by trainer Ben Davison after controversial stoppage

InfraBuild Australia Pty, part of Sanjeev Gupta’s metals empire, has secured an asset-backed term loan for $350 million

A British sailor’s boat was the latest victim in a spate of orca attacks on vessels near Gibraltar, as an expert suggested a “traumatised” killer whale may be inadvertently teaching others to target them. There have been 20 incidents this month alone between the highly social apex predators and small vessels sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), with dozens of orca attacks on ships recorded on Spanish and Portuguese coasts this year. In the early hours of Thursday, a group of orcas broke the rudder and pierced the hull of a boat after ramming into the Mustique on its way to Gibraltar, prompting its crew of four to contact Spanish authorities for help, a spokesperson for the maritime rescue service said. The service deployed a rapid-response vessel and a helicopter carrying a bilge pump to assist the 20-metre (66ft) vessel, which was sailing under a British flag, a spokesperson for the maritime rescue service said. The Mustique was towed to the port of Barbate, in the province of Cadiz, for repairs. Posting footage of the ordeal on Instagram, British sailor April Boyes, aged 31, said: “What started off as a seemingly unique encounter ended with orcas breaking off our rudder from the boat, then proceeding to tear bits off the boat for an hour. “A huge hole in the hull meant we had water ingress to other parts of the boat and the engine room, and I can honestly say it was a scary experience. We are all safe. I’m feeling grateful for the coastguard.” Earlier in May, the sailing yacht Alboran Champagne suffered a similar impact from three orcas half a nautical mile off Barbate. The boat could not be towed as it was completely flooded and was left adrift to sink. The boat’s captain, Werner Schaufelberger, told the German magazine Yacht that he saw the two smaller whales imitating the ramming tactic of the larger orca, believed to be a matriarch named “White Gladis”. “The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the ship with full force from the side,” he said. “The two little orcas copied the bigger one’s technique and, with a slight run-up, came darting towards the boat. Mainly on the rudder, but also the keel.” Just two days previously, on 2 May, six orcas rammed the hull of a Bavaria 46 cruiser yacht in an encounter lasting an hour near Tangier, reportedly causing thousands of pounds of damage. Business consultant Janet Morris and photographer Stephen Bidwell, a couple from Cambridgeshire, both aged 58, were on board for a sailing course when they heard a shout of “orcas”. “We were sitting ducks,” Ms Morris told TheDaily Telegraph, while Mr Bidwell said: “I kept reminding myself we had a 22-tonne boat made of steel, but seeing three of them coming at once, quickly and at pace with their fins out of the water, was daunting.” “A clearly larger matriarch was definitely around and was almost supervising,” he added, speculating that it was White Gladis. The first orca encounter in the area occurred in May 2020, since when more than 500 have been recorded, according to the GTOA research group. Most interactions have been harmless, with orcas only touching an estimated one in every 100 boats passing through the area, according to biologist Alfredo Lopez Fernandez, of the GTOA and University of Aveiro, who said that three vessels have sunk so far. Experts believe White Gladis may have suffered a “critical moment of agony”, such as colliding with a boat or becoming entrapped during illegal fishing, which altered her behaviour in a “defensive” fashion. “That traumatised orca is the one that started this behaviour of physical contact with boats,” Dr Lopez Fernandez told Live Science. “We do not interpret that the orcas are teaching the young, although the behaviour has spread to the young vertically, simply by imitation, and later horizontally among them, because they consider it something important in their lives,” he said. The behaviour has baffled scientists, with some initially suggesting it could be related to the harmful scarcity of food facing the mammals, or the disruptive resumption of business-as-usual nautical activities in the wake of the pandemic, while others have suggested it could be playful behaviour. Although known as killer whales, endangered orcas are part of the dolphin family. They can measure up to eight metres and weigh up to six tonnes as adults. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More Watch killer whales wreck boat in latest violent attack off Spain Rare white orca spotted off Japanese coast for first time in two years Dolphins and orcas found to use ‘Kim Kardashian-like voice register’ to catch prey ‘Like a sledgehammer’: Killer whales perplex scientists by ramming sailing boats on Spanish coast

The Kansas City Chiefs had a leg-up on the race to acquire DeAndre Hopkins, but that all changes now.Much like with Odell Beckham Jr., the Kansas City Chiefs found themselves in the mix in regards to DeAndre Hopkins's availability when it looked as though the Arizona Cardinals would trade h...

State Farm is stopping new home insurance sales in California, citing wildfire risks and skyrocketing construction, the company announced Friday.

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Mauricio Pochettino has signed a three-year contract to become Chelsea's new head coach, sources have confirmed to 90min. The Argentine will be joined by his usual backroom staff and an announcement will be made by the club in due course.

After the most dramatic final Bundesliga matchday in recent memory, Bayern Munich are again title winners as Borussia Dortmund go...

Hello. After weeks of wrangling, the White House and Republican negotiators have finally reached a deal to avert

Rain has delayed the toss for the Indian Premier League final between defending champions Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings...

WASHINGTON U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday said he expects a debt ceiling deal he struck with