By Chris Williams: WBC light welterweight champion Jose Ramirez (22-0, 16 KOs) will be defending his title this Saturday night on ESPN in a voluntary defense against #15 WBC Danny O’Connor (30-3, 11 KOs) at the at Save Mart Center in Fresno, California.
In a questionable move, Ramirez’s promoters at Top Rank didn’t enter him into the World Boxing Super Series 140lb tournament to compete against the best fighters in the division. Instead of being entered into the WBSS tournament, the 26-year-old Ramirez is facing bottom level O’Connor, who isn’t rated highly by the boxing public.
Ramirez is no longer trained by legendary trainer Freddie Roach , who seemed to do a good job training him. Of course, it’s impossible to know what impact Roach had on Ramirez’s career because he never fought any of the quality contenders in the 140 lb. division while he was with him. Ramirez’s fight against O’Connor is a perfect example of the type of opposition that he’s been facing. You can’t know how good Ramirez is with him facing bottom feeders like O’Connor rather than testing himself against Regis Prograis and Josh Taylor. Ramirez’s new trainer is Robert Garcia.
Ramirez is a huge 41:1 favorite to defeat O’Connor, according to Fight News. This isn’t surprising given O’Connor’s ranking and his past history.
“I want to fight all of the champions, but I have to take care of business July 7 against Danny O’Connor first,” said Ramirez to Fightnews.com. “I am excited to come home and defend my title. It’s going to be a great night for the Central Valley of California.”
Well, Ramirez could have increased his chances of fighting the best fighters in the light welterweight division if he’d entered the World Boxing Super Series 140lb tournament instead of wasting another fight by facing the 33-year-old O’Connor on July 7. O’Connor has past losses to Vivian Harris in 2013, Gabriel Bracero in 2015. There was a fair amount of publicity going into that fight, but he still lost the fight. O’Connor has won his last four fights against weak opposition. He hasn’t beaten anyone good enough to warrant a top 15 ranking.
It’s unclear why Top Rank chose to match Ramirez against O’Connor rather than have him fight in the World Boxing Super Series tournament. Ramirez’s situation is very similar to that of the Top Rank promoted Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez, who has failed to increase his popularity due to the soft match-making. Gilberto Ramirez should have been fighting against the best in the WBSS tournament, but instead ended up facing Roamer Alexis Angulo and Habib Ahmed. It’s baffling to try and understand why Gilberto wasn’t entered into the WBSS tournament. Now we’re seeing the same thing with Jose Ramirez not entering the WBSS tournament, and instead facing a weak fringe contender in O’Connor.
Jose Ramirez will likely easily win this Saturday night against the over-matched O’Connor. I’m trying to understand why Top Rank chose to match Ramirez against such a mediocre fighter like O’Connor. The only thing I can think of is it’s a way of making him look better than he actually is by feeding him fringe level fighters in showcase fights one after another. Some boxing fans are start believing in fighters when they see them obliterate over-matched opposition. In this case, I don’t think it’s going to happen because the guys Ramirez is being fed are so woeful that even the casual boxing fans will be able to see
through it and realize that he’s being matched continually against mediocre opposition.