By Chris Williams: Jose Ramirez will finally be defending his WBC/WBO light welterweight title against his WBC mandatory Viktor Postol this Saturday, August 29, on ESPN+ in the headliner. The action starts for the Ramirez-Postol card at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Ramirez and Postol’s mutual promoter Bob Arum had the two scheduled for February 1 in China, but that didn’t work because of COVID 19. Arum then rescheduled the fight for May, but that too was canceled. Now we’re looking at August 29, and we’re hoping three’s a charm.
This is a Top Rank Boxing promoted card. If Ramirez wins, he’ll face IBF/WBA 140-lb champion Josh Taylor next, provided that he defeats his IBF mandatory Apinun Khongsong on September 26.
Jose Ramirez vs. Viktor Postol scheduled for the third time
Ramirez-Postol has been long in the making, but you can’t say that it’s highly anticipated, as this isn’t the fight that boxing fans want to see. They want to see Ramirez take on Josh Taylor, Regis Prograis, and Jose Zepeda.
Ramirez beat Zepeda by a controversial 12 round decision in February 2019, but it’s unlikely that we’ll see these two battle it out again. If Ramirez defeats Postol and Taylor, he’s then expected to move up o 147 and take on fellow Top Rank fighter Terence Crawford for his WBO 147lb strap.
Ramirez (25-0, 17 KOs) has been attempting to get this mandatory title defense out of the way against WBC mandatory Postol (31-2, 12 KOs) since earlier this year.
“I’m excited to finally be back. It’s always an honor stepping into the ring, fighting a guy like Postol and defending my belts,” Ramirez said. “God knows that my goal is to become the undisputed champion, and this gets me one step closer to my goal.”
They’ve had two cancellations due to the pandemic, but Top Rank has finally got the fight set to take place inside ‘The Bubble’ without fans at the MGM Grand Conference Room in Las Vegas, Nevada. If the Ramirez-Postol battle doesn’t happen this time, you’ve got figure the match is jinxed.
Postol the last obstacle for Jose
Ramirez, 28, doesn’t want to face his WBC title to get the 36-year-old Postol out of the way despite there no interest from boxing fans in this match-up.
It’s kind of hard for boxing fans to get excited about seeing Ramirez fight Postol due to him losing to Josh Taylor two years ago. Taylor dominated the lanky 5’11” Postol, beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision in June 2018 in Glasgow, Scotland.
Since that defeat, Postol has fought just twice in defeating Siar Osgul and Mohamed Mimoune. The World Boxing Council made it easy on Postol in sanctioning his fight against Mimoune as a WBC 140-pound title eliminator last year in April 2019.
It would have been nice to see Postol take on someone talented like Arnold Barboza or Regis Prograis, but he probably would have lost to both of those guys.
Ramirez will be fighting for the first time in 2020 since beating WBO 140-lb champion Maurice Hooker last year in July. It’s been thirteen months since Ramirez last fought, and it’ll be interesting to see if he’s rusty from all that time out of the ring.
Ramirez had no issues walking down the tall 5’11” Hooker, and bludgeoning him against the ropes until the referee halted the fight in the sixth round. Postol is the same height as Hooker, and we could see the same type of match.
Bigger fights out there for Ramirez
Postol won the WBC light welterweight title in October 2015 in defeating Lucas Matthysse by a 10th round injury stoppage. Unfortunately for Postol, he lost his WBC title in his first defense against Terence Crawford by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision in July 2016. Crawford had too much talent for Postol, and it turned out to be a one-sided match.
Postol has won three out of his last four fights since his defeat to Crawford, but his opposition has been underwhelming. Besides the Ozgul mentioned above and Mimoune, Postol has a win over Jamshidbek Najmitdinov.
Ramirez would gain more fans if he were to forget about trying to unify the 140-lb and focus instead on trying to dethrone WBO welterweight champion, Terence Crawford. That would be a much bigger fight for Ramirez than for him to face Taylor, who isn’t as popular in the U.S as Crawford.
As far as Postol goes, he’s not the fighter that he was five years ago when he beat Lucas Matthyse.
If Postol were a little younger, he’d had a good chance of out-boxing Ramirez, who is wild and natural to hit as we saw in his controversial win over Zepeda last year.
Viktor will be hard to knockout
It’s not likely that Ramirez will be able to score a knockout over Postol because the Ukrainian fighter moves well, and he’s not going to sit in one spot all night. Ramirez can’t count on Postol fighting with his back against the ropes the way that Hooker did.
The 2012 U.S Olympian Ramirez won the vacant WBC 140lb title two years ago in beating Amir Imam by a 12 round unanimous decision in March 2018.
Since picking up the WBC belt, Ramirez has beaten Antonio Orozco, Jose Zepeda, and Maurice Hooker. By far, Zepeda was the best of the three, and he gave Ramirez all kinds of problems.
It was one of those fights where the winner Ramirez lost credibility with a lot of boxing fans due to the way he performed. Interestingly enough, Ramirez chose to move on rather than face Zepeda in a rematch, which was the worst thing he could do. But only the fans that saw the fight have been grumbling.
Ramirez should win
A lot of fans didn’t see Ramirez-Zepeda fight. As such, Ramirez didn’t take too bad of a hit. If it had been a high visibility match, then Ramirez would have been under pressure to give Zepeda a rematch.
On paper, Ramirez should win this fight against Postol, as he has the youth, power, and the judge-pleasing high volume-punching style. But Postol has the height, reach, and the better boxing skills of the two.
It’ll probably come down to Ramirez getting the win due to him being the A-side, and that might be enough for him to get the nod with the judges.
In the co-feature bout, light welterweight contender Arnold Barboza (23-0, 10 Kos) will be facing Tony Luis (29-3, 10 KOs) in a 10-round fight.