Jose Ramirez vs. Amir Imam – preview

Boxingnews24.com

By Jim Dower

Jose Ramirez (21-0, 16 KOs) has chance to prove that he’s the next star in the light welterweight division this Saturday night against number 1 WBC ranked Amir Imam (21-1, 18 KOs) in their scrap for the vacant WBC light welterweight title on ESPN at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Ramirez is the A-side fighter on this career. His promoters at Top Rank want to turn him into a star. For him to do that, he’ll need to take care of Imam in short order with a quick knockout. This fight can’t be seen as a difficult one for Ramirez.

Ramirez, 25, has excellent punching power in his left hook. That’s the positive news about him. The negative is he’s slow of hand, and he’s not a tremendous punch like some of the fighters we’ve seen in the 140 lb. weight class. He’s not another Kostya Tszyu. Ramirez is a volume puncher, who wins his fights by unloading nonstop punches. He’s similar to Antonio Margarito with the way he beats his opposition by out-landing them. Ramirez is going to need to be a little more careful against Imam while letting his hands go, since he’s a big puncher and he tends to take advantage of his opponents when they forget about their defense the way Ramirez does.

2012 U.S Olympian Ramirez will be taking a step up a level against Imam (21-1, 18 KOs) in a pure 50-50 fight for the vacant WBC 140 lb. title. Things didn’t work out for Ramirez in the 2012 Olympics unfortunately with him losing to Fazliddin Gaibnazarov of Uzbekistan by a close 15-11 score. Four years later, the southpaw Gaibnazarov won a gold medal in the 2016 Olympics. There’s nothing for Ramirez to be ashamed of in losing to Gaibnazarov, and he’s been looking very good as a pro as well at 140. Ramirez and Gaibnazarov might meet up somewhere down the road once the Uzbekistan fighter gets more fights under his belt.

Amir Imam v. Jose Carlos Ramirez will be televised on ESPN and ESPN Deportes. The start time is at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT.

When does Imam-Ramirez take place? This Saturday, on March 17. The location is at Madison Square Garden.

“I knew I was going to fight for a world title within my first five years,” Ramirez said to ESPN.com. “It’s been a little over five years — five years and three months, but I’m fighting for a world title now.”

Ramirez says he knows he was going to be fighting for a world title in the first 5 years of his career, but what made that possible though was former light welterweight unified champion Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford moving up to 147. Had Crawford stayed at 140 for a couple of more years, Ramirez would have had to change his 5-year forecast for him fighting for a world title, because it wouldn’t have happened. Top Rank wouldn’t feed Ramirez to Crawford, as that would lead to them losing one of their future potential money streams. Its good thing for Top Rank and Ramirez that Crawford moved up in weight.

As good as Ramirez is, he’s not at the level of a Crawford. He’s not that kind of a talent.

These are Ramirez’s recent wins:

• Mike Reed – KO 2

• Jake Giuriceo – TKO 2

• Issouf Kinda – KO 6

• Tomas Mendez – KO4

Ramirez has knocked out his last four opponents, but they were very soft and not at the same level of the two fighters that he’d fought before that against Manuel Perez and Johnny Garcia.

Ramirez looked bad in beating Johnny Garcia in December 2015. Despite beating Garcia by an 8 round unanimous decision, Ramirez was knocked down in round 2, and he took a lot of shots. Ramirez was literally walking into the punches from Garcia. Ramirez also had problems beating journeyman Manuel Perez (25-11-1) by a 10 round unanimous decision in April 2016. Ramirez has looked better lately in defeating Mike Reed in 2 rounds last November and Jake Giuriceo in 2 rounds last May. 2017 was an excellent year for Ramirez. He showed a lot of improvement over his efforts in 2015 and 2016.

A lot of boxing fans are assuming that Ramirez walks through Imam based off how he looked against Mike Reed. That fight made Ramirez look better than he might actually be. The bearded Ramirez, who is trained by Freddie Roach, is a good fighter, but he’s not that one of those fighters that can be counted on to dominate the 140 lb. weight class. He’s more of a blue collar type of fighter, which is why he didn’t win a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics. He was eliminated by a better fighter from Uzbekistan. Ramirez is going to need to make some tweaks with his high volume, brawling fighting style of he wants to have any real lasting power in his career. He gets hit way too much for his own good. He’s more like an Arturo Gatti type of fighter, but with slower hands and not the same ability to box. Gatti could box when he wanted to. Ramirez hasn’t shown that. He’s a straight up slugger who wins by out-brawling his opponents. It’s worked for Ramirez thus far to fight in an aggressive, head-first style of fighting, but that’s because he’s fought mostly soft opposition since turning pro in 2012.

“It’s going to be like the perfect ending to a movie,” Ramirez said.

Beating Amir Imam won’t prove a lot for Ramirez, because he’s already been beaten by Adrian Granados by an 8th round knockout in November 2015. Granados dominated Imam in that fight. It wasn’t even close. If Ramirez wins on Saturday, he’ll still need to prove himself capable of beating the better fighters in the division like Regis Prograis, Victor Postol, Omar Figueroa, Josh Taylor, and Adrien Broner. With Ramirez being signed with Top Rank, it probably means he’ll never fight guys like Broner and Mikey Garcia. That’s good news for Ramirez, because he might not beat them, but he’ll still have just as many problems trying to hold onto the WBC title against the likes of Prograis, Postol, Taylor and Figueroa. Those are all good fighters with a lot of talent and boxing skills.

This is a fight that will show whether Ramirez has a brain on his shoulder. He can’t afford to go out and try to knock Imam out right away like he’s been doing against most of his 21 opponents during his 6-year pro career. Just bum rushing his opponents will get Ramirez in trouble sooner or later. If he doesn’t start using some of the boxing skills he has, he could wind up losing on Saturday. Even if Ramirez wins, it coud be a grueling fight in which he’s forced to take a lot of punishment along the way to a victory. That’s not good for Ramirez’s longevity in the sport.

Imam has the size, reach, punching power and the boxing ability to beat Ramirez on Saturday. However, Imam’s chin failed him miserably in his 8th round knockout loss to Adrian Granados in 2015, and that same probably could come back to haunt him on Saturday night. If Imam can’t take Ramirez’s punching power, this fight could be a quick one.

Imam has some nice wins on his resume against Jared Robinson in 2014, Yordenis Ugas, Santos Benavidez, Fidel Maldonado Jr., Walter Castillo and Fernando Angulo. The win over Ugas was a big victory, as he’s been fighting really well ever since that loss. Granados stayed on top of Imam, taking every big shot he threw and firing back hard punches of his own. Ultimately, Imam was worn down by Granados. It didn’t matter that Granados isn’t the biggest puncher in the light welterweight division. His pressure and persistence ended up being too much for Imam to handle. A lot of boxing fans gave up on Imam after the defeat to Granados, but he’s shown in his last three fights that he’s ever bit as good as he was before that loss. Imam’s last win over Johnny Garcia was especially impressive in stopping him in the 4th round. This is the same Garcia that gave Ramirez all he could handle in dropping him in the 2nd round before losing an 8 round unanimous decision to him in December 2015. Imam had the advantage of fighting Garcia after he’s been softened up by unbeaten Alex Saucedo, who stopped him in the 2nd round in March of 2017. Imam fought Garcia 8 months later and stopped him in the 4th.

Unbeaten Oleksandr Gvozdyk (14-0, 12 KOs) fights Mehdi Amar (34-5-2, 16 KOs) for the WBC interim light heavyweight title. Gzodyk, 30, is also signed with Top Rank, and they want to get him a title shot against WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson. They might get their wish sooner or later, but Gvozdyk could fall apart in that fight if it takes place soon. Stevenson is probably still too good for Gvozdyk if the fight takes place within a year or two. Stevenson hasn’t shown any signs of aging yet.

Unbeaten featherweight and 2-time Irish Olympian Michael Conlan (5-0, 4 KOs) will be fighting David Berna (15-2, 14 KOs) in an 8 round fight. Having Conlan, 26, on the Ramirez-Imam card will help sell tickets, as the Irish fighter brought in a massive amount of boxing fans last year on St. Patrick’s Day in the first fight of his career.

About Author