By Chris Williams: The purse bid that was scheduled for Friday for the fight between WBC light welterweight champion Jose Carlos Ramirez (22-0, 16 KOs) and WBC interim champion Regis Prograis (21-0, 18 KOs) has been rescheduled for next Monday, according to Dan Rafael.
This is a fight that has been mandated by the World Boxing Council. Ramirez’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank wanted to let the fight marinate for a while to help make it a bigger one, but Prograis is not interested in waiting. He wants to fight Ramirez straightaway. Arum was hoping to have Prograis fight on the undercard of Ramirez’s first defense of his WBC 140lb. tile, but it’s unclear whether that will happen.
Even if Prograis’ management agreed to let the Ramirez fight marinate for a little while longer, it likely won’t get much bigger than it is now. It takes more than one or two fights to build a fight up. It takes years. Ramirez and Prograis aren’t well known enough to make their fight much bigger by delaying it one or two fights.
Ramirez captured the WBC light welterweight title on March 17 by beating Amir Imam by a 12 round unanimous decision. Prograis won the WBC interim 140lb title by beating former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Julius Indongo by a 2nd round knockout on March 9. The way that Prograis dealt with Indongo suggests that it’s going to be a real problem for Ramirez to deal with his punching power and his boxing ability. Prograis looks like he could be the best fighter in the 140 lb. division right now.
The winner of the Ramirez vs. Prograis fight should see their popularity increase. If Arum wants to help build Ramirez into a star, then he needs to match him against Prograis two or three times. If Ramirez gets knocked out by Prograis, which is quite possible, it might not be a good idea for Arum to let him fight him again.
Ramirez is a 2016 U.S Olympian with a lot of talent. He’s promoted by legendary trainer Freddie Roach, and he likes to slug it out with his opponents. Thus far, Ramirez has looked very good in his fights since turning pro in 2016. However, he’s not fought any sluggers with the major power that Prograis possesses.
If Ramirez loses the fight to Prograis, Arum will likely steer him in the direction of fighting the winner of the Terry Flanagan vs. Maurice Hooker fight for the WBO light welterweight title. Ramirez has enough talent to likely beat the Flanagan-Hooker winner, but it still won’t be easy. Those guys aren’t pushovers.