By Dan Ambrose: Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez is ready to face Canelo Alvarez when he moves up to 175 to challenge for the world titles. Ramirez (42-0, 28 KOs) expects to soon have all four world titles in his possession at light heavyweight, and he’s more than welcome a fight against his fellow countryman Canelo (56-1-2, 38 KOs).
Ramirez needs to defeat WBA light heavyweight champion Dimitry Bivol to get a title that would make it worthwhile for Canelo to face him at 175.
Getting a fight against Bivol shouldn’t be too difficult for Gilberto, but it’ll be a different story for him to challenge IBF/WBC 175-lb champion Artur Beterbiev.
The two-time Russian Olympian Beterbiev (16-0, 16 KOs) is promoted by Top Rank, who used to promote Ramirez. As long as there are no hard feelings on Top Rank’s part about Ramirez leaving them, they might be open to allowing Beterbiev to defend against him.
Canelo is only interested in fighting for world titles at this stage in his career, and Ramirez doesn’t have a belt. If Ramirez were still the WBO 168-lb champion, he would have gotten a fight against Canelo last May.
Unfortunately for Ramirez, he gave up his WBO super middleweight title in 2018, well before Canelo went on a journey to become the undisputed champion.
Ramirez has been a professional for 12 years, but he hasn’t made a name for himself in the U.S the way Canelo and other fighters have. Part of the problem is that Ramirez hasn’t faced any notable opposition.
Until recently, signing with Golden Boy Promotions, Gilberto was with Top Rank most of his career. They couldn’t get the fights for him to make him a star, and that likely wouldn’t have changed had he stayed with them.
“That’s my division. I want to take over this division,” said Ramirez to the DAZN Boxing Show about Canelo moving up to 175.
“And if he wants to do it, let’s do it,” said Ramirez in showing interest in fighting Canelo. “Because always two great fighters in the ring are guaranteed an explosive fight, and people want to see the fight, and why not? Maybe they can make it in the near future,” said Ramirez about a fight between him and Canelo.
Neither Canelo nor Gennadiy Golovkin showed interest in fighting Zurdo Ramirez, and it’s understandable. He’s much bigger than them, and his high work rate would make it difficult for those fighters to compete with him.
Zurdo, 30, looked great last Friday night in his third fight since moving up to 175 in blowing out Sullivan Barrera (22-4, 14 KOs) in the fourth round on DAZN at the Banc of California in Los Angeles, California.
Ramirez showed off his body punching ability in knocking the 39-year-old Barrera down three times before the referee Thomas Taylor called a halt to the bout at 1:38 of round four.
“To become pound-for-pound, I need to beat Bivol, [Artur] Beterbiev, Joe Smith Jr and get all the belts to become pound-for-pound,” said Ramirez.
“I think he’s a tough fight for Canelo,” Ramirez said about Caleb Plant. “But he can take the fight…I want that (Canelo) wins the fight. Plant, he’s skillful; he moves around. But I like Canelo,” said Zurdo.