By Huck Allen: Robeisy Ramirez is putting in the finishing touches for his preparation for the first title defense of his WBO featherweight belt next week against #12 Satoshi Shimizu on Tuesday, July 25th, in the co-feature on the Stephen Fulton vs. Naoya ‘Monster’ Inoue card at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan. The card will be shown live on ESPN+.
(Photo credit: Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
Robeisy recently won the WBO 126-lb belt last April, beating former super bantamweight champion Isaac Dogboe by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision. It was effortless on Robeisy’s part, beating a fighter whose only other career defeats came against Emanuel Navarrete in grueling fights.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist Robeisy (12-1, 7 KOs) is likely being matched against 37-year-old Shimizu (11-1, 10 KOs) because the card taking place in Japan because he would be better off defending against a higher-ranked, better-known fighter that U.S boxing fans have heard of to help increase his popularity.
Fighting old obscure guys like Shimizu doesn’t hit the radar screen with American boxing fans. Hence, there’s less than zero buzz about the Robeisy vs. Shimizu fight from U.S. fans with a week to go.
This fight has an early knockout for Robeisy written all over it, as Shimizu was knocked out in the sixth round four years ago by Joe Noynay, and since then, he’s beaten the following three record-padding opponents:
- Landy Cris Leon (14-23-5, 6 KOs)
- Musashi Mori (14-1-1, 7 KOs)
- Kyohei Tonomoto (14-3-1, 7 KOs)
Given the lackluster opposition that Shimizu his fought his entire seven-year professional career and not just since his loss to Noynay (21-3-2, 9 KOs), he’s going to be blown out of the water by Robeisy on July 25th. The only way this fight goes any rounds is if Robeisy purposefully plays around with Shimizu to entertain the fans at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo.
Ideally, Robeisy should be fighting higher-ranked opposition than Shimizu if he wants to advance his career. If Robeisy’s promoters at Top Rank can’t arrange unification fights against any of the other featherweight champions, then they should match him against these fighters:
– Joet Gonzalez
– Mauricio Lara
– Josh Warrington
– Raymond Ford
– Otabek Kholmatov
– Sergio Sanchez
– Ruben Villa
– Arnold Khegai
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn probably wouldn’t let his fighter Raymond Ford fight Robeisy because he doesn’t want the 24-year-old to get beaten.
Due to his long amateur career in Cuba, the 29-year-old Robeisy has gotten a late start to his career, having turned pro in 2019, and he can’t afford to spend too much time focusing on fighting bottom fringe-level fighters if he wants to try and become a star.
Robeisy’s problem is that the featherweight division is barren of name fighters, and the top guys there likely wouldn’t agree to fight him. The one name that Robeisy & his promoters at Top Rank should be targeting is IBF champion Luis Lopez. He’s the best of a mediocre bunch at 126 right now, but he would be tough.
To get the bigger fights, Robeisy will need to move up to super featherweight, where he can take on fighters like Oscar Valdez, Emanuel Navarrete, O’Shaquie Foster, Hector Luis Garcia, and Joe Cordina. The only question about Robeisy moving up to 130 is if h has enough size to compete in thaat division.
大橋ジムで公開練習。#ボクシング pic.twitter.com/RcoNxCn9kv
— Robeisy Ramirez (@RobeisyRamirez) July 18, 2023
