By Nate Anderson: According to The Sun, Enzo Maccarinelli will be facing interim WBO cruiserweight champion Victor E Ramirez (14-1, 12 KOs) on March 14th on the undercard of Amir Khan vs. Marco Antonio Barrera for the vacant WBO cruiserweight title. Maccarinelli, 28, previously was going to face Jonathon Banks for the vacant WBO Cruiserweight title but Banks suffered an injury and had to cancel.
Maccarinelli then temporarily moved up to the heavyweight division to fight Matthew Ellis in order to fill the open date. Banks Will be taking on Tomasz Adamek for the IBF cruiserweight title on February 27th.
Ramirez, 24, is coming off of a 9th round stoppage of interim WBO cruiserweight champion Alexander Alekseev on January 19th in Germany. Ramirez absorbed a great deal of punishment all fight long, only rarely getting any shots in against the faster, more highly skilled Alekseev. However, as the rounds wore on, Alekseev, perhaps accustomed to knocking most of his soft opposition out well before the 6th round, seemed to run out of gas and turn red faced as he gasped for breath.
Ramirez then took advantage of Alekseev’s poor conditioning and began to punish him with shots. In the last minute of the 8th, Ramirez finally caught up to Alekseev and connected with some good right hands to the head as Alekseev was near the ropes and seemed to hurt the Russian fighter.
In the 9th round, Alekseev looked badly gassed out as he went out for the start of the round. Ramirez then began tagging him with hard body shots and right hands to the head. As the round was nearing the end, Ramirez twice caught Alekseev up against the ropes and hurt him badly with a series of hard combinations to the head that staggered the Russian. After the round ended, Alekseev’s corner chose not to let him come out for the 9th round, giving Ramirez the victory.
Maccarinelli, a former WBO cruiserweight champion, lost his title in a 2rd round TKO against David Haye in March 2008. Maccarinelli got caught by a big right hand from Haye and then soon after taken out with a flurry of hard shots from Haye while Maccarinelli was backed up into the ropes.
If Maccarinelli does end up fighting Ramirez on March 14th, I’d have to give Enzo an excellent chance at beating Ramirez and winning the title. Ramirez looked nothing special against Alekseev and seemed to win the fight mostly because of the fact that Alekseev ran out of gas rather than any impressive work from Ramirez.
For the most part, Ramirez, from Argentina, was little more than a punching bag for the first eight rounds of the bout, showing no ability to throw combinations, little hand speed and poor footwork. Against a fighter as skilled and with the power and size of the 6’4” Maccarinelli, Ramirez will likely find himself badly outclassed, provided that Maccarinelli doesn’t run out of gas in the later rounds like Alekseev did on January 17th. That’s not likely to happen given Maccarinelli’s excellent stamina in the vast majority of his fights that have gone past the 9th round during his 10 year pro career.