By Dan Ambrose: WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez’s hand surgery has been deemed a success. The 25-year-old Ramirez had suffer on a torn ligament in his right knuckle that he suffered while training for a fight against little known German fringe contender Dominik Britsch.
Ramirez was supposed to fight Britsch in the co-feature bout on the Terence Crawford vs. Viktor Postol card this Saturday night on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Ramirez vs. Britisch fight would have likely been a mismatch, but that was the whole point. It was a voluntary defense and showcase fight for the 6’2” Ramirez.
Ramirez’s promoter Bob Arum expects him to be back inside the ring November or December this year, according to RingTV. Arum isn’t saying yet who Ramirez will be fighting at that time, but it’s pretty much a given that it’ll be just a body for the Mexican fighter to beat up on a sure thing title defense.
Arum wants to turn Ramirez into a star in the same mold as Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. For him to make that happen, Ramirez will need to be matched against guys that make him look really good. We really don’t know how good Ramirez is at this point, because he’s fought one decent fighter in his career in 36-year-old Arthur Abraham.
Last Saturday, Abraham looked dreadful in the first four rounds of his fight against 23-year-old bottom ranked Tim Robin Lihaug in Berlin, Germany. Abraham. Fortunately for Abraham, Lihaug gassed out after the 4th round, and this enabled him to take control over the fight and get an eventual 8th round knockout. Before he faded in that fight, Lihaug was making Abraham look as bad as Ramirez did. That suggests that Ramirez is not as good as his performance against Abraham would have you believe.
“The surgery was extraordinarily successful,” Arum said to RingTV.com. “Ramirez should be back in action in November and the latest in December. But assuming the rehab goes okay, he’s should be ready to fight in November.”
Arum wants to match Ramirez against middleweight Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) next year. I think that’s a crazy idea, but Arum seems to think Ramirez can beat GGG. If that fight does come off, Arum will live to regret it, because Golovkin will reduce Ramirez to rubble within six rounds.
It doesn’t matter if Ramirez runs around the ring all night long like he did against Abraham, Golovkin will eventually catch up to him and take him out with a head shot. It’s hard to know what Arum’s end game is for wanting to put Ramirez in with Triple G. Perhaps Arum thinks that it’s a win-win situation even if Ramirez gets obliterated by the Kazakhstan star, because a lot of casual fans will be introduced to him for the first time. If Ramirez doesn’t get blown out too badly by Golovkin, then he might win some fans in process of being knocked out.