By Erik Schmidt: WBA/World Boxing Council female super middleweight champion Natascha Ragosina (21-0, 12 KO’s) easily defeated American challenger Laura Ramsey (9-4, 4 KO’s) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Soccio Center, Langenhagen, Niedersachsen, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 98-93, 99-91 and 100-90. Sporting a huge six and half inch height advantage, the 5’11 ½” Ragosina bounced around for 10 rounds, leaning backwards and pounding away at the shorter 5’5” 39-year-old Ramsey and appearing to win every round without too many problems.
Ramsey looked dog tired after the 4th round and gasped for breath in pain between rounds much of the time. Like many of Ragosina’s challengers, Ramsey’s career record was far from impressive. Indeed, Ramsey had lost three out of her last four fights coming into Friday night’s fight, which begs the question: What was Ramsey doing in the same ring with a champion fighter with a record like that?
Without even throwing a punch, it was pretty clear that Ramsey wasn’t going to be able to stand much of a chance against the much taller unbeaten Ragosina. Although sometimes fighters are able to pull off a miracle upset, it usually doesn’t happen when there’s such a huge disparity in size and talent like in Friday’s bout between Ragosina and Ramsey.
While a couple of judges obviously gave Ramsey some rounds, let me tell you, I couldn’t see one round that Ramsey even came close to winning. She was getting out-punched approximately 40 punches to 1 in every round and given that she didn’t knock Ragosina down or hurt her, I couldn’t give Ramsey any rounds in the fight. Ramsey was dropped late in the 2nd round by a right cross from Ragosina, who caught Ramsey perfectly as she was rushing inside trying to land.
It was hard to blame Ramsey for fighting so desperately. At 5’5”, Ramsey was getting taken apart on the outside by the much taller Ragosina, and wasn’t able to close to distance on most occasions. Ramsey tried desperately to connect with punches in every round, missing wild looping punches that Ragosina would deftly lean backwards to avoid.
In the 1st round, Ragosina, 33, originally from Kazakhstan and now living and fighting out of Germany, bounced around the ring in her unusual style of fighting, flicking out a jab constantly and picking off the shorter Ramsey. In the 2nd round, Ramsey began to rush forward and try to land shots.
However, Ragosina picked her off with four consecutive right hands late in the round, knocking Ramsey tom the canvas. Ragosina isn’t much of a puncher, mainly because she stays on the move so much and doesn’t sit down on her punch. But on this occasion, she stood flat footed and nailed Ramsey with a big right hand that sent Ramsey down on the canvas as if she had been shot.
It was a great punch and I was surprised that Ramsey got up off the deck to continue fighting. The round ended shortly after the action resumed. In the 3rd round, Ramsey rushed after Ragosina early in the round, missing big wild swings which Ragosina leaned backwards to avoid.
The shots would have caused Ragosina problems had they landed, but Ragosina was good at fighting tall and avoiding the big shots from Ramsey. In the meantime, Ragosina kept firing back right hands and was able to find a home for them to the face of Ramsey.
In the 4th round, Ramsey charged Ragosina early in the round and bulled her to the ropes in a failed attempt to trap her. However, Ragosina fired back three hard right hands in close and then moved off the ropes to continue to dominate at center ring. In rounds five through seven, Ragosina continued to pepper Ramsey with right hands and jabs.
Ramsey tried landing but Ragosina easily avoided her big looping punches by leaning away. In the 6th, Ragosina caught Ramsey coming in with big right hands, stopping her forward progress each time. In rounds eight through ten, Ragosina became more confident, throwing a lot of right hands and loading up on them much more than she usually does.
Ramsey was very tired and gasping for breath in between rounds. In each of the last three rounds, Ramsey averaged only three connects with her wild punches. She rarely threw despite coming forward all the time.
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