By Chris Williams: Top Rank is working on scheduling Jose Ramirez vs. Viktor Postol for late August. ESPN is reporting that Top Rank president Todd Duboef is looking at having WBC light welterweight champion Ramirez (25-0, 17 KOs) defend against his mandatory Postol (31-2,12 KOs) in the third week of August.
The Ramirez vs. Viktor Postol fight has had a significant dysfunction when it comes to getting to take place. It’s almost like there’s a hex on the match, dooming it to be postponed for all of eternity.
The WBC could help out immensely if they gave Ramirez the Franchise tag, and cast the WBC belt adrift for Postol to go diving after.
Postol’s 15 minutes of fame came from him stopping Lucas Matthysse in the 10th round five years ago in 2015. That was a fight in which Matthysse suffered a bad eye injury in the 10th, and he hit the deck after getting hurt.
Some fights aren’t meant to be
Top Rank could take care of this fight easily if they wanted to by asking the World Boxing Council to make Ramirez the Franchise champ. The reason why they won’t is that they also promote Postol. So by making this fight, which fans aren’t interested in seeing,
Top Rank helping out Postol and giving Ramirez an easy battle. Postol, 5’11”, has no power, and he’s pretty old. The only thing he’s got going for him is his height and reach.
Ramirez-Postol previously scheduled twice
- February 1 in China
- May 9 in Fresno, California
As you can see, the Postol vs. Ramirez fight is jinxed, and now we’re going for number three. Twice, Ramirez vs. Postol has been scheduled, and both times it failed to happen due to the pandemic. The last time I checked, the roaring pandemic is still everywhere and creating real problems.
ESPN will broadest Ramirez’s title defense against the 36-year-old Postol. Jose will be making his fourth defense of his WBC 140-lb title that he won in 2018 with a victory over Amir Imam. Last year, Ramirez had a close call in squeaking by Jose Zepeda with a narrow 12 round decision.
Is three times a charm for Ramirez and Postol?
Ramirez was fortunate to beat Zepeda because it sure did look like he lost. Boxing News 24 had Zepeda winning by four rounds. Ramirez fought like he had two left feet in that bout, as Zepeda picked him off with shots the entire fight, and made him look bad. Instead of giving Zepeda a rematch,
Ramirez moved on and has since stopped former WBO 140-lb champion Maurice Hooker by a sixth-round knockout last year in July.
Ramirez-Postol is a fight that has already scheduled twice before, and now Top Rank is shooting for #3. It’s a fight that just won’t go away, and the thing is, there’s scant interest in it from boxing fans.
Poor Ramirez has been trying to get this fight scheduled so he can get it over with and move on to the clash that fans want to see between him and IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Josh Taylor.
If Ramirez-Postol gets postponed for the third time, Ramirez might want to consider giving up the WBC title and moving forward to face Taylor. People won’t care if there are only three world titles on the line for the Ramirez vs. Taylor fight instead of four.
Should Ramirez vacate his WBC title
Whether there are three or four belts on the line for that fight, it just goes over the head of the average boxing fans. They honestly don’t care. As long as there’s at least one belt on the line, that’ll be enough to validate the Ramirez-Taylor clash in the eyes of most people.
“We’re being as flexible as possible with ESPN,” Todd duBoef said to ESPN. “They’re going to see how the NBA schedule comes out, the MLB schedule, all the other sports that are supposed to be back in August. They’re formulating their schedule.
“We’re basically telling [fighters], ‘Hey, you’ll be this week in August. You’ll be this week in August.’ Then we’re honing in on a date.”
Ramirez has devoted a year of his career trying to get the fight with Postol out of the way, and yet it STILL hasn’t happened. When fighters start losing an entire year of their careers on battles that lesser matches like Ramirez-Postol, it’s time to break that vicious cycle by giving up the WBC title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QariEwUJie4
If Postol had beaten someone good to earn the WBC mandatory position, that would be one thing, but he hasn’t. Postol beat the light-hitting Mohamed Mimoune (22-4, 3 KOs) in the WBC 140-lb title eliminator last year in April 2019 in the UK. Mimoune has since lost to British domestic level fighter Tyrone McKenna last February.
I, for one, am in favor of Ramirez throwing his WBC belt in the bin and moving on to the Taylor fight. Let Postol go after the vacant WBC 140-lb title against #2 Regis Prograis. Postol would need a lot of luck against Prograis because that would be a nightmare opponent for him.