By Chris Williams: WBC light welterweight champion Jose Carlos Ramirez (22-0, 17 KOs) makes his first defense of his title this Saturday night against bottom ranked #15 WBC Danny O’Connor (30-3, 11 KOs) at the Save Mart Arena in Fresno, California. ESPN will be televising the Ramirez vs. O’Connor fight on Saturday night starting at 9:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. PT.
There’s a lack of buzz about this fight despite the fight taking place tomorrow, and the reason for that is because O’Connor isn’t a big name and his career has failed to take off due to his losses to Gabriel Bracero and Vivian Harris.
This is the fight that Top Rank is having the 25-year-old Ramirez take rather than face interim WBC 140 lb. Regis Prograis or enter the World Boxing Super Series light welterweight tournament to take on the best fighters in the 140 lb. division. Ramirez could have been fighting the best. Instead he’s facing the lowest ranked contender in the WBC’s top 15 rankings in 33-year-old O’Connor.
“It’s quite an honor for me to bring this type of fight, this type of entertainment, to Central California,” Ramirez said at his final press conference on Thursday. ”To fight my first title defense in front of my biggest fans, my closest friends and my family, it’s a blessing.”
Ramirez’s best wins of his career have come against Amir Imam, Mike Reed, Jack Giuriceo and Manuel Perez. Those are decent B-level fighters, but nowhere close to the better fighters in the 140 lb. weight class. Top Rank has for some reason chosen not to match Ramirez against the talented fighters in the light welterweight division from this list:
– Regis Prograis
– Sergey Lipinets
– Kiryl Relikh
– Viktor Postol
– Ivan Baranchyk
– Omar Figueroa
I don’t consider Adrien Broner and Alex Saucedo as being talented guys at 140. Those guys are limited to the extreme, and I believe that Ramirez would likely beat both of them.
2012 U.S Olympian Ramirez will be fighting in front of his boxing fans in Central California on Saturday night. He has a significant fan base in that part of California, but not elsewhere in Northern California or the rest of the U.S. Ramirez recently defeated Amir Imam by a 12 round unanimous decision last March to capture the vacant WBC light welterweight title at Madison Square Garden in New York. The fight was a lot closer than the scores turned in by two of the judges. Ramirez won the fight, but it was a very close affair. The scores were 117-111, 115-113 and 120-108. Boxing News 24 saw it as 7 rounds 5 victory for Ramirez. He did enough to get the ‘W’ but it wasn’t a thing of beauty. One didn’t get the sense that Ramirez could do the same thing against the top fighters like Josh aylor or Regis Prograis, which might explain why he and his promoters at Top Rank chose not to enter the World Boxing Super Series
tournament to compete against the best fighters in the 1450- lb. weight class. It might turn out badly for Ramire iz he tried to mix it up with better fighters in venues that were away from his home turf in Central California.
Ramirez dumped trainer Freddie Roach recently and is now using Robert Garcia as his corner-man. It’s unclear how much of a difference having Garcia as his trainer rather than Roach will be for him. Ramirez’s limits as a fighter are readily apparent from watching him fight. He’s not a big puncher, and depends on volume punching to win his fights. That style has worked for him so far in his fights, but he still hasn’t faced any real puncher yet in his career. Once that happens, we could see the wheels come off the Ramirez train all at once, and Top Rank will need to figure out a different approach to his career, such as going after one of the World Boxing Association’s two titles in the 140lb weight class or WBO strap holder Maurice Hooker.
“Robert is a guy who is from Oxnard, a very similar community to Central California,” Ramirez said. He understands the work ethic and what we represent, what we do. And he wants to be a part of it. He’s very motivated to train me. He’s very excited to train me. That makes it easier for me to be motivated and to be excited to stay in this sport,” Ramirez said about Garcia.
As I said, I don’t think it really matters that Ramirez is being trained by Robert Garcia rather than Freddie Roach. Ramirez isn’t suddenly going to gain any additional punching power or hand speed now that he’s with Garcia. It’s not going to help Ramirez’s chin take the shots that Prograis, Kiryl Relikh, Taylor and Sergey Lipinets are going to be bouncing off his chin when/if they eventually face him. Ramirez might be able to beat one or two of those guys, but he certainly won’t beat all of them. Prograis is a knockout waiting to happen for Ramirez, and I think Taylor and Relikh will be very hard fights for him as well. Lipinets vs. Ramirez is a 50-50 fight. The reality is Ramirez is a decent fighter, but not a great one. He barely beat a flawed fighter in Amir Imam, and that shows you how limited he is at 140. Top Rank boss Bob Arum would do well to have Ramirez vacate the WBC title after the World Boxing Super Series tournament ends because after it does, Josh Taylor and Prograis are going to be going after him looking to take his scalp.
“I feel grateful to be in this position. I’ve worked very hard inside the ring and outside the ring to overcome so much adversity to be here today,” O’Connro said. ”I never quit. I never gave up on myself. I never lost hope.”
O’Connor’s soft-spoken approach to this fight suggests that he knows that he’s over-matched against Ramirez. The only thing you can hope is for O’Connor to put in a better effort than he did in his losses to Bracero and Vivian Harris. O’Connor looked bad in both of those. The good news is O’Connor has a four-fight winning streak going for him now, and he’s looked improved since his 1st round knockout loss to Bracero in October 2015. The bad news is O’Connor’s recent victories came over weak opposition against these fighters: Steve Claggett, Daniel Gonzalez, Michael McLaughlin and Jerry Thomas. O’Connor’s lack of punching power is going to put him at a huge disadvantage against Ramirez because he won’t be able to keep him honest by being able to keep him from unloading sustained flurries on him the way that he likes to do against poor opposition. Ramirez won’t be able to get away with that style of fighting against the top fighters with punching power because they’ll catch him with a big shot if he carelessly unloads on them with sustained combinations without worrying about getting hi in return. Against O’Connor, Ramirez can throw as many punches as he wants without worrying about getting hit with something hard enough to hurt him. It’s doubtful that Ramirez is going to respect O’Connor’s punching power on Saturday night because the guy can’t crack eggs with the shots that he throws. As such, this match is going to be a showcase fight for Ramirez.
Prediction
I see Ramirez knocking O’Connor out within two rounds on Saturday night. O’Connor has already shown in his loss to Bracero that he can be quickly taken out when his opponent jumps on him early on in the fight, and Ramirez will likely try and take advantage of that weakness by going after O’Connor right away to score a fast knockout.