Arthur Abraham vs. Gilberto Ramirez possible for Pacquiao-Bradley undercard

By Boxing News - 12/30/2015 - Comments

abraham6By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is really looking to beef up the undercard of the April 9th Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley 3 fight card on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The latest fight that Arum is hoping to add to the undercard for the fight is a showdown between unbeaten #1 WBO Gilberto Ramirez (33-0, 24 KOs) and WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (44-4, 29 KOs).

Arum believes that the 24-year-old Ramirez can become popular like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Thus far, however, Ramirez remains a flawed fighter with an inflated resume of wins over weak opponents. Ramirez looks nowhere near the talent level of the 25-year-old Canelo.

“Ramirez-Abraham possible for Pacquiao-Bradley undercard, Arum said,” Lance Pugmire of the LA Times reported today.

After struggling to defeat Maxim Vlasov by a 10 round decision earlier this year in January, Ramirez has had a remake of his fighting style in becoming a more outside fighter. Consequently, the 6’3″ Ramirez looked a lot better in beating Derek Edwards and Gevorg Khatchikian in one-sided decisions in his last two bouts. I would say that Ramirez looks 100 percent better than he was before, when he was wasting time trying to fight on the inside. That being said, Ramirez still needs a lot of work with his fighting style, and I don’t think he’s even remotely ready for a fighter like Abraham. This would be a winnable fight for Ramirez if he had more time to hone his skills, but he’s not going to get that time. Arum believes in Ramirez and is throwing him in the deep end right now against Abraham.

Arum is interested in matching Ramirez up against middleweight Gennady Golovkin in 2016 if Golovkin is willing to move up to the 168lb division. Arum thinks that Ramirez would beat Golovkin if that fight happens.

Earlier today, Arum revealed that he’s interested in adding 44-year-old heavyweight Ike Ibeabuchi vs. Andy Ruiz to the Pacquiao-Bradley card. The fact that Arum is working hard at adding a quality undercard to the card tells you that he believes that he absolutely needs to in order to attract interest from the fans in wanting to purchase it. Let’s be real about this; Pacquiao-Bradley is an unnecessary fight.

Pacquiao has beaten Bradley twice, and it’s very clear that he’s levels above the American in talent. Pacquiao was robbed in his first fight against Bradley in 2012, and the judge’s decision is something of a joke to many boxing fans. They don’t respect it. For that reason, it’s totally unnecessary for Pacquiao to fight Bradley a third time. It would be like asking boxing fans to pay to see Pacquiao fight Brandon Rios three times simply because Arum keeps matching them up due to them both being in his Top Rank stable.

The rematches that Arum does with his Top Rank fighters makes it up almost like club fighting rather than professional fighting in my opinion. Arum matches the guys in his club against each other repeatedly to the point where it’s just not interesting anymore.



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