Gilberto Ramirez defeats Gevorg Khatchikian – results

By Boxing News - 11/21/2015 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten and highly ranked IBF#1, WBO #1, WBC #2, WBA #2 168lb contender Gilberto Ramirez (33-0, 24 KOs) defeated over Gevorg Khatchikian, (23-2, 11 KOs) by a less than impressive 10 round unanimous decision on Friday night on truTV at the Cosmopolitan Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

The 24-year-old Ramirez was stunned several times by shots early on by the light hitting Khatchikian, and it wasn’t until the 4th round when Ramirez finally took full command of the fight.

The judges scored the fight 99-91, 100-90 and 100-90. I think those scores were too wide for the amount of times that Ramirez was hurt in the first three rounds of the fight. It’s unclear why the judges gave Ramirez rounds where he was hurt.

From the 4th round on, Ramirez began to out-work Khatchikian to dominate the action. Ramirez, 6’3”, landed some nice body shots, and was able to land the cleaner shots in the last six rounds to hold into his WBO International 168lb title.

Top Rank, the promoters for Ramirez, would do well to hold off in putting him in with any of the good super middleweights in the division, because he doesn’t look ready to challenge for a title against WBO super middleweight division.

The sanctioning bodies have all given Ramirez a high ranking, but he’s clearly not as good as the rankings that has been given to him. Right now, Ramirez looks like a poor man’s version of James DeGale. He’s lacking in too many areas for him to beat any of the champions at 168 in my view, and he would be better off waiting a few years before fighting for a title.

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In other action on the card, unbeaten welterweight Konstantin Ponomarev (29-0, 13 KOPs) defeated Ramses Agaton, (17-3-3, 9 KOs) in a much tougher than expected 8 round majority decision by the scores of 79-73 79-73 and 76-76. Ponomarev, 23, was getting nailed a lot in the fight by Agaton, and he didn’t have the punching power or the accuracy to make the fight easier.

After all the hype that was made about Ponomarev, he looked really poor and nothing like a future world champion. If Ponomarev is going to win a world title one of these days, then he’s going to need to develop some punching power, because he can’t crack eggs with the power that he has right now.

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Unbeaten lightweight Saul Rodriguez Jr. (19-0-1, 14 KOs) stayed unbeaten with a surprising 1st round knockout win over the usually tough as nails Ivan Najera, (16-2, 8 KOs). Najera recently lost a 10 round decision over the highly rated Felix Verdejo last June.

I rate Verdejo as a much better fighter than Rodriguez Jr., yet he wasn’t able to KO Najera in one round like we saw tonight. All I can think of is that Verdejo softened Najera up for Rodriguez Jr. with the methodical beating he gave him last June.

Rodriguez Jr. knocked Najera down twice in the round, which prompted referee Kenny Bayless to halt the fight at 2:06 of the 1st round.

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Unbeaten super featherweight Casey Ramos (21-0, 5 KOs) defeated a game but limited journeyman Adones Aguelo (24-13-2, 16 KOs) by a one-sided eight round unanimous decision by the scores of 80-72, 80-72 and 80-72.

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Other boxing results on the card:

Oleksandr Gvozdyk TKO 3 Cleiton Conceicao
Toka Kahn Clary TKO 2 Sergio Lopez



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