By Chris Williams: #6 WBA flyweight contender Zou Shiming (5-0, 1 KOs) won a harder than expected 10 round unanimous victory over 2nd tier fighter Luis De La Rosa (23-4-1, 13 KOs) on Saturday night at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.
This was supposed to have been a fairly easy fight that would put the 33-year-old Shiming into a world title fight against likely WBA champion Juan Carlos Reveco, but instead it was a grueling fight for Shiming, who ended up with a swollen right jaw. The judges scored the fight 99-91, 99-91 and 97-93 for Shiming. De La Rosa was cut over his right eye in the 5th round. The cut continued to bleed for the remainder of the fight, but it wasn’t bad enough to slow him down in any way.
Shiming showed no improvement whatsoever in punching power despite his trainer Freddie Roach saying that boxing fans would be surprised by his power. Shiming did try and sit down on his punches and stay in the pocket from rounds 1-7, but after taking way too many hard head shots from the Colombian De La Rosa, Shiming focused on moving around the ring and showboating in the 8th and 9th rounds.
It looked strange with Shiming showboating, because he was getting nailed every once in a while, and looked kind of silly. Showboating works when you’re not getting hit at all, but Shiming was getting tagged by huge shots with his clowning around in the ring. In the 9th, Shiming decided to finish strong by going toe-to-toe with De La Rosa in what easy turned out to be the best round of the fight. It was pretty much an even round though with De La Rosa landing the harder shots.
Shiming may still end up fighting for a world title, but it’s going to be tough for him, even against a paper champion like Reveco. The recognized top flyweight champion is WBA/WBO champion Juan Francisco Estrada. Obviously Top Rank isn’t going to put Shiming in with Estrada, not now, and probably not ever. Estrada can fight and that would be a bad match-up for the light hitting Shiming.
To be sure, Top Rank is going to get him a world title fight, but it’s going to likely be against the weakest guy of the bunch in order to get him a paper title. You can’t put him in with Estrada after a performance like this. Even a contender like Roman Gonzalez (39-0, 33 KOs) would be a nightmare for Shiming. They’re probably not ever going to make that fight either.
They’re going to need to push the 33-year-old Shiming into a world title fight whether he’s ready or not, because he’s simply too old for him to be brought along slowly for 2-4 years. It would be silly to put him into a title fight at age 35-37, so they’re going to need to make that move as soon as possible and hope he can hang with the perceived weakest of the champions.
Like I said, there’s no way Top Rank is going to put Shiming in with the best champion Estrada or any of the top contenders in the division. You’ll noticed that tonight’s opponent De La Rosa wasn’t ranked in the top 15, and he came into the fight having lost 2 out of his last 4 fights. That kind of tells you the approach that Top Rank is taking with Shiming. They’re not taking any chances with him. But even against a 2nd fighter in De La Rosa, is was not a dominating performance from Shiming.
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#2 WBC, #2 WBO, #3 WBA, #4 IBF super middleweight contender Gilberto Ramirez (29-0, 23 KOs) easily destroyed an over-matched Australian Junior Talipeau (20-2-2, 7 KOs) by a 1st round knockout. Ramirez knocked the 30-year-old Talipeau down three times in the round.
The fight was halted after Ramirez dropped Talipeau with for a third time with a left hand to the head.
The first knockdown came from a short right uppercut by Ramirez shortly into the fight. He then later knocked Talipeau down with a body shot after hurting him with another right uppercut. A short time later, Ramirez knocked Talipeau with a left hand that finished matters.
It’s hard to tell how good Ramirez is because his competition has been just so horrible for his entire 7-year pro careers. He’s not fought the guys that he needs to fight in order to learn anything about him. What you can see is that he clearly doesn’t have the skills of an Andre Ward or James DeGale, and he doesn’t have the power of guys like Mikkel Kessler, Carl Froch, Arthur Abraham and George Groves.
Ramirez is not that kind of a puncher. Ramirez is knocking guys out, but his opposition has been dreadful. When they eventually step this guy up, they’re going to need to be careful with him because his competition has been so incredibly bad. They’re going to need to step him up slowly otherwise we’re likely going to see him get taken apart by someone due to the jump up being too massive.
At 6’2”, Ramirez is built a lot like Edwin Rodriguez, but he doesn’t look as solid or as powerful as Rodriguez. I’d pick Rodriguez to beat Ramirez fairly easily if a fight between were made, not that they would take a risk in putting Ramirez with him. Ramirez looks like a decent contender, but not someone that is good enough to be a champion unless he picks off a weak champion and defends against beatable competition. If you put Ramirez in the ring with the likes of Andre Ward or Carl Froch, he’s going to get taken apart piece by piece. He doesn’t have that kind of talent.
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