ORLANDO — Austin Williams remembers the knock, the hard rap on the door of his Santa Monica apartment that changed his life forever. In the spring of 2021, Williams was spiraling. A year earlier, his mother, burdened by financial problems, attempted suicide. In the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, he got into an unhealthy relationship. His girlfriend got pregnant. He wanted to keep the child. She didn’t. To escape, he drove from Texas to southern California, shacking up in an one-bedroom apartment his co-manager, writer and director Pete Berg, rented for him. He thought getting away would help him. It didn’t. A marijuana dependency worsened. The isolation broke him. One day, he trashed Berg’s gym. He uploaded a diss track aimed at his promoter, Eddie Hearn. The next day, the knock woke him. The police were at the door. Berg was with them. He walked in, looked at Williams and said, “It’s time to go.”
“I was so messed up,” Williams says. “I needed help. I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t get it.”
There is pain in Williams’s voice. He has spoken about his mental health issues before. Never about this. About how he had to watch his mother be resuscitated after overdosing on pills. About his ex-girlfriend’s decision to terminate her pregnancy. About the dark thoughts about retaliation he had after that.
He isn’t sure why he’s telling it. “I’m trusting you with this,” Williams says. I’ve known “Ammo” Williams for six years, since the Houston amateur standout signed a promotional deal with Matchroom Boxing. He rose quickly, an explosive 160-pound prospect collecting spectacular knockouts over Javier Francisco Maciel and Chordale Booker, outpointing veteran Kieron Conway.
In 2024, Williams challenged Hamzah Sheeraz. He had some good moments against Sheeraz before succumbing to the power of the massive 6'3" puncher. He bounced back with four wins in a row, and on Saturday will challenge Carlos Adames for the WBC middleweight title.
Maybe that’s why. Five years ago, a world championship felt like a pipe dream. Berg took Williams to UCLA, where he checked into the psychiatric hospital. From there, he was transferred to Cottonwood, a recovery center in Tucson. A month later he was at a nearby rehab facility. Slowly, his mind started to heal.
He needed money. Boxing was out. Cottonwood offered patients the opportunity to work with horses. “Walk them, feed them, things like that,” says Williams. When he was discharged, he reached out to the manager to see if there were any job openings. A hand had recently quit, Williams was told. The job was his if he wanted it.
“Muck duty” is how Williams described his role. Clean the stables in the morning. Wash and groom the horses in the afternoon. Handle any oral medications. If a horse had colic, it was Williams’s job to run it out of them. The peacefulness proved therapeutic. “I needed that time,” says Williams. “It changed my perspective.”
He started thinking about boxing. When Williams was transferred to Tucson, his co-manager, Sam Katkovski, contacted Eric Woods, a former pro who had been training fighters in the area. Woods agreed to work with Williams, to ease him back into shape. When Williams finished his work on the ranch, he would hit the gym with Woods.
In late 2021, Williams felt well enough to return. He repaired his relationship with Hearn, who kept him on Matchroom’s roster. He joined forces with Kevin Cunningham, a Florida-based trainer known as a disciplinarian. In December, he faced Quatavious Cash. He remembers the feeling of terror during the ring walk. The embarrassment he felt fighting in front of Hearn and Berg. His therapist was there sitting ringside.
“Literally everybody that invested in me coming back was there,” says Williams. “The show was not even about a crowd. It was about just proving to these guys that I still have what it takes in boxing. Forget about the therapy, forget about the mental health, forget about all that. I have to show that I’m still valuable in this sport. It was a pressure I can’t describe.”
The fight started shaky. Cash tagged Williams with a few combinations in the first round, briefly stunning him. In the second, Williams found his rhythm. He blitzed Cash, clipping him with a hard left hand. The referee, believing Cash was hurt, waved off the fight. “It was my ugliest knockout,” says Williams. “But in my brain and my soul, I was like, just thank God I broke that ice and got past that.”
From there, the wins started to rack up. A first-round knockout of Booker. Dominant decisions over veterans Conway and Steve Rolls. He came up short against Sheeraz but considers that fight a learning experience that only made him better.
On Saturday, he gets Adames. The two were supposed to meet in January, only for Adames to pull out during fight week, citing illness. Adames, 31, is significantly more experienced than Williams, with a resume that includes a draw with Sheeraz last year, a fight many believed he won. Williams, 29, will enter the ring as a sizable underdog.
Williams doesn’t care. His focus, he says, is unshakeable. He’s married now, to Sharahya Taina Moreu, a professional boxer. The two have an 11-month-old daughter, Karaya, who has lit a fire under Williams in training and fulfilled him at home. Woods is still with him, now serving as his cut man. Berg is still supporting him. “Pete really saved me,” says Williams. His mind is right. His body is right. And he’s convinced on Saturday he will exit the ring as a world champion.
And maybe that is why he is telling his story. Williams has been open about his mental health issues. He wants to reach people, which perhaps is why he’s willing to speak more granularly. Because if he can rise from the darkness that once engulfed him, anyone can.
“My story is now at a point where it’s a point of power,” says Williams. “It’s a point where I can sincerely say that if you keep going or if you seek the help you need, if you trust your people, there will be brighter days.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as “I Was So Messed Up”: How Austin Williams Turned His Dark Story Into Power.
