By Dan Ambrose: The highly ranked unbeaten #2 WBC, #2 WBO, #3 IBF, #3 WBA super middleweight contender Gilberto Ramirez (31-0, 24 KOs) will be back in the ring next month against the big punching Derek Edwards (27-4-1, 14 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round bout on June 26th in Hidalgo, Texas.
The fight will be televised on tru-TV. This is a risky bout for the 23-year-old Ramirez, as he looked poor in his recent fight against Maxim Vlasov in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision last January at the 1stBank Center, in Broomfield, Colorado, USA.
Ramirez took a lot of punishment in the Vlasov fight, and he looked barely better than the Russian fighter. With the high ranking that the 23-year-old Ramirez has by the four sanctioning bodies, he didn’t appear to be nearly as good as his ranking suggests. Ramirez fought more like a bottom 15 fringe contender rather than someone ranked at No.2 by the WBC and WBO.
It makes you wonder what those sanctioning bodies are thinking about in giving the still very raw Ramirez such a high ranking. To be sure, they’re not doing him any favors in ranking him this high at this early point of his career because his talent doesn’t back up his high rankings yet. That might change in the future as he gets older, but right now he doesn’t look like he deserves the ranking.
Edwards has a 1st round knockout win over Badou Jack last year in a fight in which he knocked him down three times before the bout was stopped. In Edwards’ last fight, he took a beating in losing a 12 round unanimous decision to Andre Dirrell in a one-sided loss. Edwards didn’t have the talent or the size to compete against the taller, faster Dirrell.
This fight could turn out to be a huge mistake for Top Rank because Ramirez clearly isn’t as good as the rankings suggests, and Edwards can really punch. He’s a better puncher than Ramirez, and he’s likely to have little problems landing his power shots against the wide open Ramirez, especially if he persists in trying to throw body shots all the time.
Ramirez is too tall of a fighter to be getting in close in throwing body shots all the time, and he’s going to have to learn that he’s using the wrong fighting style for a guy his size. He seems like he’s trying to fight like Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., but his body his way too big to be fighting with that style.
Comments are closed.