By William Lloyd: Matchroom Boxing prmoter Eddie Hearn is predicting a knockout victory for Josh Taylor next Saturday, May 22nd for his undisputed 140-lb championship fight against Jose Ramirez.
Hearn isn’t the only one predicting a victory for the big southpaw ‘Tartan Tornado’ when he battles Ramirez at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The unbeaten Taylor (17-0, 13 KOs) will be looking to become the first fighter from Scotland to capture four titles in a single division when he steps inside the ring against WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Ramirez (26-0, 17 KOs) in their ESPN televised fight.
Taylor will bring his IBF/WBA 140lb titles to the ring when he faces the big 5’10” American and 2012 U.S Olympian Ramirez next Saturday. This will be a different type of opponent for Taylor than the previous 17 fighters he’s faced since turning pro in 2015.
Ramirez is a pressure fighter and volume puncher who has excellent power and a sturdy chin. His weakness is dealing with technical fighters that take advantage of his aggressive style of fighting.
Ramirez’s tough toughest fights in the pro ranks against Jose Zepeda and Viktor Postol. He barely scraped by with questionable 12 round decision wins. While Ramirez’s fight with Zepeda took place two years ago in 2019, he’s not shown signs of having improved.
“A really, really good fight. I hope that Josh Taylor wins, I believe he will,” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV on next Saturday’s unification between Taylor and Jose Ramirez.
“I think it’s a tremendous fight, I think Taylor wins, and I think he might stop him actually. That’s a great fight, but, of course, the big fight comes a week after with [Devin] Haney vs. [Jorge] Linares,” said Hearn.
It’s hard to imagine Taylor knocking out Ramirez, as the 28-year-old has never been hurt during his career. For Taylor to get in the position where he hurts Ramirez, he’ll need to get in the trenches to slug with him the way he did against Regis Prograis.
That wouldn’t be advisable because Ramirez is a different type of fighter capable of throwing a lot of punches, particularly to the body. Taylor is excellent at making his opponents miss with headshots, but he’s not ad adept at preventing his opponents from him hitting him to the body.
It’s not surprising that Hearn through in his comment about the Haney vs. Linares fight at the end. He promotes WBC lightweight champion Haney (25-0, 15 KOs), and he’s trying to create some badly needed attention on him and his title defense against Linares on May 29th.
“I’d be the first person in Scotland to be a four-belt undisputed world champion and the first undisputed champion since Ken Buchanan,” said Taylor to DAZN.
“To make sporting history and go into the history books is massive and gets my juices flowing. I’ve always dreamed of being an undisputed champion.
“On paper, Ramirez is my toughest fight to date. He’s a unified world champion and a decorated fighter, but I can’t see him beating me. I can’t see it at all,” said Taylor.
