Gilberto Ramirez vs. Juan Camilo Novoa on November 20th on truTV

By Boxing News - 09/19/2015 - Comments

ramirezBy Dan Ambrose: Undefeated super middleweight contender Gilberto Ramirez (32-0, 24 KOs)) will be facing 31-year-old Colombian Juan Camilo Novoa (25-6-1, 23 KOs) on November 20th on truTV at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Chelsea Ballroom in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ramirez is coming off of an easy 10 round unanimous decision win over Dereck Edwards last June.

Despite being unbeaten, Ramirez, 24, still hasn’t fought anyone that you can call a good fighter. He struggled to defeat Russian Maxim Vlasov by a 10 round unanimous decision last January.

Ramirez’s promoters at Top Rank believe he has the talent to become a great world champion, but right now it’s hard to picture him beating any of the current world champions in the division. Top Rank are obviously hoping that Ramirez can get a huge following in the Mexican community in the way that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has, but he’s not being matched up in the same way that Canelo has been since he turned pro.

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Canelo has faced much better opposition than Ramirez and is only one year older than him at 25. Top Rank must see flaws in Ramirez’s game for them to want to take a go slow approach with him. To be sure, Ramirez looked terrible in his fight against Vlasov and nothing like a future world champion.

Top Rank seems to be waiting for something to happen before they let Ramirez try and fight one of the top fighters in the 168lb division. It could be that they’re waiting for Ramirez to develop his outside game more before they match him tough. Before his last fight against Edwards, Ramirez had been an inside fighter his entire six year pro career.

At 6’3”, Ramirez is too tall to be an inside fighter, and he took a lot of punishment in fighting in that style. But in his last fight, Ramirez fought exclusively on the outside and was able to avoid many of Edward’s big power shots. Ramirez still didn’t look that good, but he was definitely improved. If Top Rank is going to wait a while longer before they finally start putting Ramirez in with quality opponents then they could be wasting their time because I don’t think he’s going to improve much.

It’s definitely not good that Ramirez isn’t able to shine in his fights thus far against the weak opposition that Top Rank is matching him against. If Ramirez is any good, he should be able to look sensational against the 2nd and 3rd tier opposition that Top Rank has built his record on. He’s just not looking like a fighter should look with a 32-0 record.

When Ramirez does fight for a world title, it will likely be against WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham. Ramirez is ranked No.1 by the WBO.

Beating Novoa isn’t the type of wins that Ramirez needs for the boxing world to take him seriously, and it’s also not the type of fight that will improve him in any significant manner.

In the co-feature, lightweights in Saul Rodriguez and Ivan Najera will be facing off. Najera lost his last fight to Felix Verdejo.

Hassan N’Dam vs. Sam Soliman on November 21st

Former WBO middleweight champion Hassan N’Dam (31-2, 18 KOs) will be trying to get back on the winning track two months from now on November 21st against 41-year-old former International Boxing Federation 160lb champion Sam Soliman (44-13, 18 KOs) in an IBF middleweight title eliminator in Paris, France, according to Fight News.

N’Dam is getting a quick shot back to a world title by being put in an IBF eliminator so soon after losing his last fight to David Lemieux last June in a fight for the vacant IBF middleweight title. N’Dam was knocked down four times in the fight in losing a 12 round unanimous decision to the 26-year-old Lemieux.

N’Dam, 31, probably has enough talent to get past the 41-year-old Soliman in this match-up as long as his chin holds up from the occasional pot shots that Soliman likes to throw.

“A win will give me the right to fight for the IBF middleweight number one spot which grants a mandatory title shot,” Soliman said to Fightnews.com.

Soliman lost his last fight to Dominic Wade by a controversial 10 round split decision last June. Many boxing fans felt that Soliman had done more than enough to deserve the decision over Wade. Before that, Soliman was beaten by former undisputed middleweight champion Jermain Taylor by a 12 round unanimous decision in October 2014. Soliman hurt his knee in that fight, resulting in him getting knocked down four times.



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