By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is banking on unbeaten #2 WBC, #2 WBO, #3 IBF, #3 WBA super middleweight contender Gilberto Ramirez (31-0, 24 KOs) eventually developing into a world champion at super middleweight. Ramirez will be facing the hard hitting Derek Edwards (27-4-1, 14 KOs) on June 26th at the State Farm Arena, in Hidalgo, Texas, USA.
This is an opponent that the top super middleweights are expected to beat without too many problems, but as we saw with Badou Jack, he folded up in one round against Edwards last year in February. In Edwards’ last fight against Andre Dirrell last December, Edwards staggered Dirrell badly in the 12th. Edwards lost the fight by a 12 round decision but he definitely had Dirrell hurt.
If Ramirez can’t get out of the way of Edwards’ shots in this fight, then it’s very likely Ramirez will be knocked out.
At only 23, Ramirez has a very glossy record filled with wins over fluff opposition, and inflated rankings by all of the sanctioning bodies. With the kind of ranking that Ramirez has, you would think that he’s a can’t miss type fighter. But that’s the farthest thing from the truth. Ramirez is very flawed, and he’s not looked good thus far when facing B level opposition.
Ramirez looked really bad in his last fight against Maxim Vlasov last January. Ramirez won the fight by a 10 round unanimous decision, but he took a tremendous amount of punishment to the head. It was lucky for Ramirez that the fight was only a 10 round affair because if it had lasted another two rounds, I think he would have ended up getting knocked out. The fight showed clearly that Ramirez isn’t ready to fight the A-level guys in the division, because he literally went life and death with Vlasov.
Top Rank might be making a big mistake in letting Ramirez fight a puncher like Edwards because this is type of fighter that you only face if you’ve got good defensive skills, and Ramirez certainly doesn’t have any defensive skills whatsoever. Ramirez tries to fight like Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., but he’s too big to fight in that manner, and he’s not as skilled as Chavez was.
Chavez had actual talent and was able to get out of the way of a lot of the punches that were thrown at him. Ramirez is like a punching bag for fighters. He can take the shots, but he’s getting hit way too much and you have to wonder about what he’s going to be like in the future once his career is over.
Top Rank needs to slow down with Ramirez and keep him fighting B and C level fighters for another three to four more years before they consider putting him in with one of the world champions because if they put him in with a champion now, he’s going to get easily beaten.
Ramirez has too much to learn right now for him to be fighting any of the top fighters at 168. Top Rank is reportedly angling Ramirez to fight the winner of the Arthur Abraham vs. Robert Stieglitz fight for Abraham’s WBO title. I think that’s a mistake because Abraham is going to have an easy time battering Ramirez if that fight gets made.
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