By Chris Williams: Jose Ramirez (26-0, 17 KOs) held onto his WBC/WBO light-welterweight titles on Saturday night with a controversial 12 round majority decision over his WBC mandatory challenger Viktor Postol (31-3, 12 KOs) at The Bubble in the MGM Grand conference room in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The judges scored it 115-113, 116-112 for Ramirez and 114-114 even. Boxing News 24 had Postol winning 116-112 [eight rounds to four].
Ramirez couldn’t get to Postol
The former WBC 140-lb champion Postol kept Ramirez at the end of his jab all night and peppered him with beautiful left-fight combinations down the stretch in the second of the fight. Ramirez emptied his gas tank after the 7th, and he looked exhausted as he plodded around the ring, trying to get to Postol.
It’s unclear whether Ramirez had problems making weight for the fight, given that he never looked this exhausted in his past fight. From the 8th, Ramirez resembled a much older fighter than his 28 years. He looked worn, old, and tired as he slowly tried to cut off the ring.
Postol controlled rounds 2, 3 & 4 in the first half of the fight. He kept Ramirez from getting to him by the jab and moving out of the way when he tried to force him up against the ropes as he’d done against his last opponent WBO 140lb champion Maurice Hooker in 2019.
Ramirez did an excellent job of working his way to the inside and hammering Postol in rounds 1, 4, 6 & 7. That was when Ramirez was at his best last Saturday night. However, after the 7th, Ramirez hit the wall in terms of his gas tank, and he had nothing left. Postol ran away with the fight and made him look bad.
To listen to the ESPN commentators, Tim Bradley and Andre Ward, one would think that Ramirez won the fight. However, that wasn’t the case as far as what Chris Williams saw. Ramirez wasn’t in the same league as Postol, and he didn’t deserve the win.
I mean, Ramirez fought well enough to win four rounds, but that was it. Half of those four rounds were ones where you give it to Postol based on his ring generalship. The only reason I had Ramirez winning four rounds is he landed the more challenging shots, but he was still out-punched, and he looked lost and bewildered.
Jose viewed the fight as a sparring session
“I felt like I was just in a sparring session. I think I could’ve made the fight a lot easier in my favor, but we live and we learn. This was an amazing experience. I’m just happy I got the win,” said Ramirez after the fight.
Like in his fight against the highly skilled Jose Zepeda in 2018, Ramirez had problems with the boxing skills of the 36-year-old Postol, and he struggled from the 8th round on. Ramirez, 28, ran out of gas entirely from the 8th round on and was given a boxing lesson by the taller, more agile 5’11” Postol.
It’s not surprising that the 2012 U.S Olympian Ramirez was given the decision, as he was the A-side in the fight, and there’s a lot of interest from fans in seeing him face Josh Taylor.
With the win, Ramirez will likely be facing IBF/WBA light-welterweight champion Josh Taylor (16-0, 12 KOs) next. Taylor, 29, first needs to get past his IBF mandatory Apinun Khongsong (16-0, 13 KOs) next month on September 26th. Those two are fighting at the BT Studio in Stratford. Taylor is expected to beat the little known Khongsong without any problems. Khongsong is another example of the International Boxing Federation ranking a fighter with no experience against world-level opposition.
Ramirez is going to have a massive amount of problems with Taylor, who is similar to Postol in terms of his height, reach, and boxing skills. Where Taylor is more advanced than Postol is with his inside game. Taylor is an incredible inside fighter, better than Ramirez even in that department.
Josh Taylor next for Ramirez
If Taylor faces Ramirez in the U.S, it’s anyone’s guess if he wins. As we saw last night, Ramirez can still win even when he’s getting badly out-boxed by one of his opponents. We saw the same thing in Ramirez’s fight last year against Jose Zepeda.
Ramirez appeared to lose that fight, too, but won a highly controversial 12 round majority decision. Chris Williams had Zepedia winning nine rounds to 3. He made Ramirez look worse than Postol did, and was he was picking him off all night long jabs, lefts, and rights.
“I went in there a little too cold, you know? I impressed myself. I’m much stronger than most guys thin,” said Ramirez. “I just got not to lose confidence in myself and stick to what I do best and box, let my hands go, and not hesitate too much.”
It wasn’t because Ramirez was cold that he struggled against Postol, as he maintains. The fact is, Ramirez is a glorified brawler, and he’s not talented enough to handle boxers.
That’s not something that we only learned last Saturday night. Ramirez has had that problem from day one since his amateurs days, which is why he didn’t win a gold medal in the Olympics in 2012. He was out-boxed by Fazliddin Gaibnazarov from Uzbekistan and eliminated from the competition.
We saw the same thing from Ramirez when he fought Jose Zepeda last year in March 2019. Zepeda took Ramirez to school and out-boxed him, but he found himself on the losing end of a controversial decision.
Postol exposed the exact same things that Zepeda and Gaibnazarov did against Ramirez, but he didn’t get the decision.
Ramirez = Canelo Alvarez 2.0?
You can argue that Ramirez in the same league as the popular fighter Canelo Alvarez in terms of getting favorable scoring in his fights. Although Ramirez isn’t nearly as popular as Canelo, he’s getting the same kind of controversial decisions as him now. It’ll be interesting to see how long this lasts.
If Josh Taylor gives Ramirez a boxing lesson and loses, there’s going to be a huge outcry from Josh’s British fans, who won’t be quiet about the decision the way that Postol’s fans are today.
You can bet that Taylor’s fans will be making a big deal about him losing a controversial decision to Ramirez if that’s what happens, which I wouldn’t be surprised is what does go down. Ramirez has now been involved in TWO controversial wins in his last three fights, and he should arguably have a record of 24-2 now, not 26-0.
When a fighter is getting controversial wins repeatedly, it’s only a matter of time before the judges finally get it right. The fact that Ramirez is struggling against likes of Postol and Zepeda, it suggests he’s to lose to Taylor, Regis Prograis and Terence Crawford.
Ramirez likely won’t fight Prograis, though, as he plans on moving up to 147 to challenge fellow Top Rank fighter Crawford after his match against Josh Taylor. What we don’t know is if Ramirez will stay at 140 if he loses to Taylor?
My guess is, Ramirez will move up anyway to 147, and blame his loss to Taylor on his problems making weight. That’s a predictable move on Ramirez’s part.
147 won’t be a good dvisiion for Ramirez, as he’ll likely end up as a lesser version of Shawn Porter. Ramirez doesn’t have the speed, size and the power to compete with the talented fighters like Errol Spence Jr, Porter, Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia or Manny Pacquiao.
I’m not sure that Ramirez will be able to get fights against any of those guys due to him being on the different side of the street.