By Dan Ambrose: In an example of perfect match-making, Top Rank super middleweight Gilberto Ramirez (32-0, 24 KOs) defeated Derek Edwards (27-5-1, 14 KOs) by a dull 10 round unanimous decision on Friday night to stay unbeaten at the State Farm Arena in Hidalgo, Texas.
Ramirez won the fight by the scores of 100-90, 100-90 and 100-90. Ramirez hurt Edwards in the 4th and 8th rounds with big shots. He then flurried on him until growing arm weary.
Edwards, 5’9”, was simply too short to land his shots against the 6’2 ½” Ramirez. When Edwards would try and throw shots, his lack of reach would prevent him from connecting with Ramirez’s chin. Ramirez also backed away a lot when Edwards would come forward to try and land his shots. Edwards frequently foiled his own attempts to get anything going by choosing to clinch Ramirez when he would get in close rather than continuing to work like smarter fighters do.
In the rounds where Edwards got in trouble, he would back up to the ropes and just cover up like a sparring partner. This enabled Ramirez to tee off on him with combination. Ramirez missed with a lot of his punches though when he had Edwards against the ropes. In between rounds, Edwards’ trainer told him to stay off the ropes, but he failed to follow his directions. His trainer also told him to throw punches, and didn’t follow his instructions in this area as well.
Despite having a big knockout record, Ramirez didn’t look all that powerful. He seems push his punches instead of throwing them with the force that you see from other top 168lb contenders. Also, Ramirez’s hand speed isn’t that impressive.
Ramirez could face the winner of the Arthur Abraham vs. Robert Stieglitz 4 fight on July 18th. Ramirez is ranked No.2 by the WBO right now. However, I’m not sure that he’s ready to fight someone like Abraham, because that guy has excellent power and he actually throws punches back at his opponents, unlike Edwards.
Ramirez looked terrible in his last fight against Maxim Vlasov last January. Ramirez was hit again and again by Vlasov, who is nothing special. Edwards could have done the same thing that Vlasov did if he’d let his hands go. Like I said, it was good match-making by Top Rank to find a fighter that doesn’t throw punches and who wouldn’t make Ramirez look bad.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum sees the 24-year-old Ramirez as a future world champion and someone who could become a big start. However, with the way Ramirez looked tonight, he would be no match for the better 168lb contenders in the division like Andre Ward, James DeGale, George Groves, Badou Jack and Andre Dirrell. Ramirez is way too slow and he’s all arms.
Ramirez is currently ranked at WBC #2, WBA #3, IBF #3, WBO #2 at 168. He still hasn’t fought a good contender year in the division, and it looks like he won’t get a chance to fight a real contender because Arum will likely wait until Ramirez gets a title shot against Abraham, who is considered a paper champion in the minds of a lot of boxing fans. You have to wonder why Arum isn’t matching Ramirez against Ward or DeGale. You think it’s an accident that he’s steering Ramirez towards Abraham? I don’t.
Other boxing results on the card:
Diego Magdaleno TKO 7 Jose Gonzalez
Esquiva Falcao TKO 4 Aaron Drake
Luis Castro TKO 2 Victor Rosas
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