By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he wants to match his unbeaten 24-year-old fighter Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (33-0, 24 KOs) against Gennady Golovkin in Ramirez’s first defense if he beats WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (44-4, 29 KOs) in their fight on April 9th on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley.
Arum expects the 6’2” Ramirez to defeat Abraham to win his WBO 168lb title, and then he’d like for Ramirez to defend against Golovkin after that. Arum also sees Ramirez beating Golovkin.
“I think Golovkin and Tom Loeffler would rather fight Canelo,” Arum said to Fighthype. “I don’t think that fights going to happen. He [Golovkin] might even want to fight the English guy Saunders.
I don’t think that fights going to happen. If those two fights don’t happen and Ramirez beats Arthur Abraham, I would love his first defense to be against Golovkin. I think Ramirez beats Golovkin,” Arum said.
It really helps that Arum is name dropping Ramirez’s name along with Golovkin. I don’t think it would work out too well for Ramirez if he found himself in the same ring was Golovkin.
That’s pretty bold talk from Arum in him saying that the inexperienced Ramirez beats a fighter as accomplished as Golovkin. Ramirez is short on experience and he’s not looked like a world beater in his only fight against a contender in Maxim Vlasov last year.
Ramirez barely beat Vlasov, and was shook up on a couple of occasions in that fight from big punches he was hit with. If a non-puncher like Vlasov was able to hurt Ramirez, then it stands to reason that Golovkin would KO Ramirez with no problems.
I have serious doubts whether Ramirez will beat Abraham on 4/9. This is a huge step up in class for Ramirez in taking that fight, and I don’t think he’s ready for it. Ramirez is so inexperienced that I don’t think he’ll ever be ready for a fighter like Golovkin.
Arum is pushing the kid way too fast in my opinion because he doesn’t have the amateur or the pro experience to be taking on a tough old pro like Abraham. Ramirez will have five-inch height and a three-inch reach advantage over the 5’9” Abraham, but I don’t think it’s going to help Ramirez any.
I suspect he’s going to take a beating and wind up getting knocked out in this fight. Hopefully after that happens, Arum will do the right thing and push the reset button on Ramirez’s career and start over. Ramirez needs to fight at least another 30 times against increasingly better opposition for him to develop the experience he would need to compete against the best fighters in the sport.
It’s too bad Arum can’t persuade Ramirez to go back to the amateur ranks and pick up some badly needed experience. Golovkin had over 400 amateur fights before he turned pro. If Ramirez could fight 400 times as an amateur, he would be so much better than he is now. He still might not be good enough to ever beat the best guys in the 168lb division, but I think he would be world’s better than he is now.
Arum might be thinking that Ramirez would still come out ahead even if Golovkin knocked him out cold in one round, because Ramirez’s name would be better known after getting a fight against Golovkin.
I agree with Arum about Saunders and Canelo not likely to face Golovkin. I don’t agree that Golovkin should move up to super middleweight to waste a fight beating up on Arum’s fighter Gilberto Ramirez.
As bad as Ramirez looked in his close win over Vlasov last year, it wouldn’t be a fair fight if Golovkin fought Ramirez. I think it would be so much of a massacre that Golovkin might develop bad habits from the fight because he would be landing everything he threw at the amateurish Ramirez.
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