Former WBO featherweight champion Robeisy Ramirez will be fighting on the undercard of WBO light welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez’s title defense against Steve Claggett on June 29th on ESPN at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida.
Dan Rafael reports that the two-time Olympic gold medalist Robeisy (13-2, 8 KOs) has been added to the Lopez vs. Claggett card.
Robeisy’s opponent for that event is still unknown at this point, but it could be a fringe contender who can help him regain his confidence after his 12-round majority decision loss to the tall, stork-like 6’1″ Rafael Espinoza last December.
The unbeaten 29-year-old Espinoza (24-0, 20 KOs) ‘s height, reach, and high work rate were a nightmare for the much shorter 5’5″ Robeisy, who didn’t look ready to deal with a fighter of that size with the volume that he had.
Espinoza’s not the biggest puncher, but his work rate was out of this world in that fight and more than what a soft-looking Robeisy was ready for. Initially, it looked like it would be an easy victory for Robeisy after he dropped Espinoza with a perfectly timed shot in the fifth round, but he blew it by failing to jump on him to finish the job.
In the twelfth round, Espinoza unloaded with a storm of shots to put Robeisy on the canvas and had him close to being knocked out. The defeat for Robeisy was the second of his career and it puts him in a situation where he can’t afford another loss anytime soon if he wants to get a chance to redeem himself to pick up another world title.
It would be wise for Top Rank to steer Robeisy away from putting him back in with Espinoza in a rematch because it’s a bad style match-up due to the height and high volume output of the Mexican fighter.
There are contenders at 126 who would be dangerous for Espinoza, like Bruce Carrington and Luis Alberto Lopez, due to their punching power, but not Robeisy. He’s more of a boxer and doesn’t have enough pop in his punches to deal with Espinoza’s size and high-volume offense.
According to Rafael, Teofimo was offered a list of options for his June 29th title defense and he chose the 34-year-old Claggett (38-7-2, 26 KOs) over these contenders:
Raymond Muratalla
Kenneth Sims Jr
Elvis Rodriguez.