By Jim Calfa: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Joe Smith Jr. will face the former WBO super middleweight champ in an October catchweight fight in the cruiserweight division at a still-to-be-determined venue in Las Vegas.
Ramirez (44-1, 30 KO), who’d been campaigning at 175 from 2019 to 2022, has decided to move up to cruiserweight following his one-sided twelve round unanimous decision loss to WBA 175-lb champion Dmitry Bivol last November.
It’s unclear why Ramirez, 32, chose to fight Joe Smith Jr. because he’d be better off fighting an actual cruiserweight. The fight will be at a weight in the 190s. Hopefully, Ramirez doesn’t come in overweight because rehydrates to over 200 lbs.
Smith (28-4, 22 KOs) & Ramirez are both off losses. In June, Joe was knocked out in the second round by IBF & WBC champion Artur Beterbiev last year.
“They will do a fight in early October. They’ll have a fight in Las Vegas, that’s the site, and because Zurdo is never going to make light heavyweight again, whereas Joe Smith could still fight at light heavyweight if he wanted, but it’s going to be at a catchweight,” said Dan Rafael to Big Fight Weeknd about a fight between former WBO light heavyweight champion Joe Smith Jr. and former WBO 168-lb champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez.
Zurdo is going to have to fight a lot better than he did against Bivol for him to have a chance of beating the heavy-handed Joe Smith Jr. This guy sits down on his shots a lot more than Bivol, and he’ll be attempting to knockout Ramirez.
“It’s not going to be at the full cruiserweight limit, and this is one of the things that are still dickering around about it,” said Rafael. “I don’t think they’re having a big argument about it. They just haven’t determined, but it’ll be at a weight somewhere in the 190s.”
It’ll be interesting to see if Ramirez can find success at cruiserweight because he’s a fighter that has thrived on having a large size advantage over his opponents his entire career, and he may struggle fighting opposition as large as him at cruiserweight.
“That’s really an accommodation to Zurdo, who is going to be moving up to cruiserweight at some point anyway, and for Joe Smith,” said Rafael. “He’s not smaller based on the fact that they were both light heavyweights for a long time.”
Smith Jr will still likely be smaller than the 6’3″ Ramirez because he’s not a guy that shoots up in weight after he makes weight for his light heavyweight fights.
“Zurdo won his world title at super middleweight, not at light heavyweight the way Joe Smith did. So the weight situation is an accommodation for Zurdo. I have a lot of people Tweeting, ‘Why isn’t it at 175?’ Who cares” It’s not a world title fight.
“One guy [Gilberto] is moving up in weight anyway. He’s not going to be at the full cruiserweight limit. They’re going to have a nice match-up.
“They’re going to headline a DAZN & Golden Boy card somewhere in the 190s in terms of the weight, and the winner will take a big step forward, and the loser will have some big problems because they’ll have two losses in a row, and they’ll have to figure out what to do.
“It’s kind of like the Dmitry Bivol losers sweepstakes because they both got beaten by Bivol. Zurdo getting shut out essentially in a fight that we just talked about, and Joe Smith, a few years earlier, also lost a decision to Bivol.
“He almost stopped Bivol late in the fight but couldn’t get enough done in the twelfth round. That was a solid match-up. Anyway, good fight if you ask me. I like the match-up,” said Rafael.
