Jose Ramirez’s defense against Viktor Postol rescheduled for May 9 in Fresno, CA

By Boxing News - 02/19/2020 - Comments

By Allan Fox: WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Jose Ramirez’s title defense against WBC mandatory Viktor Postol will be delayed by three months until May 9.

The fight will be shown on ESPN and staged at the Save Mart Center in Fresno, California. Ramirez will have been out of the ring for 10 months by the time he defends his WBC belt against former champion Postol next May.

The new fight date is expected to be announced officially after this Saturday’s rematch between WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury.

Ramirez (25-0, 17 KOs) and Postol (31-2, 12 KOs) were scheduled for February 1 at the Mission Hills Haikou resort in Haikou, China. The Ramirez vs. Postol fight needed to be moved off that date and location as a result of the coronavirus in China. The outbreak started last December in China.

This is a bad deal for Ramirez because he’s stuck having to wait another three months to make a simple defense against the 36-year-old Postol in a fight that won’t do much for his career.

Ramirez wants to move on to face IBF/WBA 140-lb champion Josh Taylor (16-0, 12 KOs) in a clash for the undisputed light-welterweight championship. But that fight is going to have to wait until later this year. You can imagine Ramirez can’t be too happy with his promoters having scheduled him to fight in China, and not realizing at the time how things would go to pieces.

At this point in Ramirez’s career, he should be fighting in front of his own boxing fan in Southern California rather than having his fights taken to distant locations like China or wherever.

This will be Ramirez’s fourth defense of his World Boxing Council title he won two years ago against Amir Imam. In his last fight, he defeated WBO champion Maurice Hooker by a 6th round knockout last July.

Last weekend, Ramirez called lightweight contender Ryan Garcia (20-0, 17 KOs) on social media in letting him know he’ll come down to 135 to face him. With Ramirez not getting great fights and now dealing with another three months of inactivity, it’s perfectly understandable why he’s looking to take things into his own hands to try and talk his way into a big fight.

Ramirez vs. Ryan Garcia would be an excellent fight if it could get made, but Ryan’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya made it clear last weekend that Golden Boy Promotions already have plans for their young fighter. When Ramirez’s name was brought up, De La Hoya said they’re already got a course for Ryan.

Postol was beaten three fights ago by Josh Taylor by a 12 round unanimous decision in June 2018. However, Postol was able to quickly earn the WBC mandatory position by beating Siar Ozgul and Mohamed Mimoune (22-3, 3 KOs) to set himself up with a quick title shot.

It’s unfortunate that Postol didn’t need to beat a quality light-welterweight like Subriel Matias, Regis Prograis, Ivan Baranchyk or Pablo Cesar Cano to earn the WBC mandatory. It was arguably too easy for Postol with him only needing to defeat Mimoune to become mandatory to Ramirez.