Former IBF/WBC cruiserweight champion Mairis Briedis and former WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez will be fighting for the vacant IBF title recently stripped from champion Jai Opetaia.

There’s a purse bid scheduled for January 16th. Dan Rafael says the 38-year-old Briedis (28-2, 20 KOs) wasn’t interested in negotiating for the fight with ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez and opted for the purse bid on January 16th.

Ramirez getting quick title shot

It’s kind of quick for Ramirez to be getting a world title shot after fighting just once at cruiserweight. Granted, it’s a weak division, but Ramirez should have at least had to work his way into a position.

Ryan Rozicki and Huseyin Cincara deserved more to fight for the vacant IBF cruiserweight title against Briedis than Ramirez.

Briedis lost his IBF cruiserweight belt to Jai Opetaia by a twelve round unanimous decision in July 2022. For some reason, Briedis didn’t rematch with Opetaia, which would have made for an interesting clash.

Opetaia was then stripped when he chose to fight on the ‘Day of Reckoning’ card last month on December 23rd against non-ranked fighter Ellis Zorro.

Does Briedis have anything left?

Briedis took a lot of punishment in his loss to Opetaia, and we’ll see how well he holds up against Ramirez if this fight turns out to be a shootout.

Ramirez (45-1, 30 KOs) is coming off a ten round unanimous decision win over former WBO light heavyweight champion Joe Smith Jr. last October.

For that fight, the 32-year-old Ramirez changed his style entirely, boxing and moving and fighting nothing like he’d been before. Artur Beterbiev had knocked Smith out at light heavyweight in his previous fight.

In Ramirez’s fight, he lost a wide twelve round unanimous decision to WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol in November 2022. Ramirez looked huge for that fight after rehydrating, which made it clear that he needed to move up in weight.