By Sean Jones: Oscar De La Hoya is still trying to make sense of what happened to his fighter Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez in his lopsided 12 round unanimous decision loss to WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol on November 5th.
Oscar is saying that Ramirez “froze” in his big moment against Bivol, which is a weird excuse because it would have been better if he blamed the defeat on him being weight drained, going from the 200s down to 175.
Before the fight, Golden Boy head honcho De La Hoya had talked of the previously unbeaten former WBO super middleweight champion Zurdo Ramirez (44-1, 30 KOs) avenging Canelo Alvarez’s loss to Bivol (21-0, 11 KOs) from last May in Las Vegas.
It must be hard for De La Hoya to come to terms with the reality that he’s stuck with an albatross in Ramirez, who showed that he’s not going to be a world champion at 175.
De La Hoya had such high hopes for Ramirez when he signed him as a free agent, but his performance showed that he doesn’t have what it takes to capture a belt at 175.
“He’s special,” said Oscar De La Hoya to Fighthype when asked about his thoughts on Dmitry Bivol’s performance against Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez.
“I think it was a big moment on the big stage against a great fighter, and he possibly froze in the fight,” said De La Hoya about what happened with the previously unbeaten Zurdo Ramirez for him to look so bad against Bivol.
“But Bivol, hands down to him. He’s got to be one of the best fighters out there pound-for-pound,” said De La Hoya.
With Ramirez’s huge 200+lb size, he will have to move up to cruiserweight soon because he can’t continue to melt down vast amounts of weight to make the 175-lb limit, especially if he has no hopes of capturing a belt in the division.
Zurdo, 31, was supposed to even the score by beating Bivol and showing Canelo how it’s done. Still, instead, things immediately fell apart for the cruiserweight-sized 6’4″ Ramirez, with him getting schooled from the opening bell.
It was such a one-sided fight that the boxing fans ringside at the Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi, had very little to cheer about because Ramirez was lost inside the ring with Bivol. The scores were generous to Ramirez, with the judges turning in this set: 117-111, 117-111, and 118-110.