Notebook: Ramirez puts loss to Taylor behind him, ready to start anew vs. Pedraza

DiBella, Probellum form alliance; Alimkhanuly-Munguia in discussions; Quick hits; Show and tell

Feb 23, 2022

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It has been nearly a year since Jose Ramirez lost a close unanimous decision to Josh Taylor in their battle for the undisputed junior welterweight championship.

Ramirez put his two belts up against Taylor’s two in a spirited battle last May in Las Vegas, where the outcome was determined by Taylor scoring two knockdowns, one in the sixth round and one in the seventh. All three judges scored the fight 114-112. Without the knockdowns it would have been a draw and both would have retained their belts.

Taylor returns to the ring on Saturday in a Scotland homecoming defense against mandatory challenger Jack Catterall and Ramirez will follow him back into the ring a week later when he meets former two-division titlist Jose Pedraza on March 4 in the main event of a Top Rank Boxing on ESPN+ card at the Save Mart Center in Fresno, California, Ramirez’s home region and an arena he has regularly filled.

Ramirez (26-1, 17 KOs), 29, of Avenal, California, of course, did not want to lose to Taylor but he said there was a silver lining to dealing with his first professional defeat.

“The loss against Taylor taught me a lot. It was the first of my career, and I feel like it brought back my hunger for boxing again,” Ramirez said after a recent workout with trainer Robert Garcia at his gym in Riverside, California. “I've really enjoyed this training camp preparing to get back on the winning path. I've had a lot of fun training with Robert Garcia in Riverside. I have corrected the mistakes that I made in that fight against Taylor. Maybe I had been making them for a long time, but when you are winning all your fights, you do not always look at the mistakes.

“I had a hard time accepting it, but I've already turned the page. There's nothing I can do about it. I am ready to return to the top of the division. I know that I am one of the best fighters at 140 pounds. I want to regain my titles and win all of the belts. It doesn't matter if it's in a rematch against Taylor, challenging another champion, or in a vacant title match against another top contender. I want my titles back.”

If Ramirez is to move in that direction he needs to turn back the always tough Pedraza (29-3, 14 KOs), 32, of Puerto Rico, who is a bona fide contender and former junior lightweight and lightweight world titleholder on a three-fight winning streak against good opposition.

“Jose Pedraza is a tough test,” Ramirez said. “He is a very good fighter and has looked good since he adjusted to the 140-pound division. I want to earn another shot at the title. I am not one to talk much. I come to face the best and let my performances in the ring speak for themselves. I hope that Pedraza comes well prepared. I want to face the best version of Jose Pedraza so we can give the fans another classic fight between Mexico and Puerto Rico.

“Coming back to fight again in front of my people in Fresno (for the first time in four fights since 2019) makes me very happy. I am training very hard because I want to bring joy and happiness to my fans again. I want them to feel proud, and that is why I am here to leave everything inside the ring.”

Probellum, DiBella team up

Since upstart promoter Probellum launched this past September it has made one deal after another to work with various promoters around the world.

On Tuesday, it announced its first strategic partnership with an American promoter in Lou DiBella and his DiBella Entertainment.

According to the announcement, the deal “will include co-promotional activities around key fighters in the DiBella Entertainment stable, support for grassroots boxing in the United States, and the continued growth of Probellum’s international network of co-promotional partners.”

Although which DiBella fighters Probellum will specifically co-promote was not announced it’s a good bet that 2016 U.S. Olympian and rising junior middleweight Charles Conwell (16-0, 12 KOs), 24, of Cleveland, and 2020 Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov (9-0, 9 KOs), 27, of Uzbekistan, are part of the deal. Jalolov’s first post-Olympics fight in December was on a Probellum card in Dubai and he is already scheduled for another Probellum card there on March 18.

“Today is a landmark day for Probellum. I am delighted to be able to formally announce our strategic partnership deal with the great Lou DiBella,” Probellum president Richard Schaefer said. “Lou and I have known and worked together for many years and his influence and reputation in boxing needs little explanation. He has led great change in the past and alongside the excellent team we are building at Probellum I have every confidence that we will be able to create a new era for our sport.”

DiBella, the former HBO Sports vice president, who will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in June, worked on several events with Schaefer when Schaefer was the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions.

“Boxing has to change. For too long, self-interest and politics have got in the way of what the fighters and the fans really want — the best against the best, in locations all around the world,” DiBella said. “I have been very vocal about the need to transform our sport and I am so pleased to have found people who share that vision and are taking significant steps to make it a reality.

“Probellum is the only business in the market with the vision and strategy to disrupt boxing’s status quo on a truly global scale and I didn’t hesitate to begin collaborating when they called. Change is coming and we’re ready to go.”

Alimkhanuly-Munguia eliminator

The WBO on Tuesday notified Janibek Alimkhanuly promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank and Jaime Munguia promoter Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions that they should begin negotiations to meet for the organization’s interim middleweight title.

Even before the order went out, Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti and Gomez were in discussions for a fight both camps are interested in making in the wake of Munguia’s third-round knockout of D’Mitrius Ballard on Saturday night in the DAZN main event in Munguia’s hometown of Tijuana, Mexico.

Demetrius Andrade, the current titleholder, is planning to fight at super middleweight in his next bout and would have to make a decision on which division he wants to fight in after that, meaning he could return to middleweight and defend against the Alimkhanuly-Munguia winner in a mandatory bout or vacate with the Alimkhanuly-Munguia winner becoming the full titleholder.

“The parties are granted 10 days to reach an agreement,” the WBO wrote to Arum and Gomez. “If an accord is not reached within the time frame outlined herein, a purse bid ceremony will be ordered.”

The minimum bid for the fight is $200,000.

Munguia (39-0, 31 KOs), 25, is the former WBO junior middleweight titleholder. He has won all five of his fights since vacating the belt and moving up to middleweight in 2020.

Alimkhanuly (11-0, 7 KOs), a 2016 Olympian from Kazakhstan, has beaten two former middleweight titleholders by knockout in his last two bouts.

In his last fight, on the Terence Crawford-Shawn Porter undercard in November, Alimkhanuly, a 28-year-old southpaw, beat and battered Hassan N’Dam in an eighth-round knockout victory. Last June, he stopped Rob Brant in the eighth round of another one-sided fight.

Quick hits

Welterweight up-and-comer Conor Benn (20-0, 13 KOs), 25, of England, the son of British legend Nigel Benn, is due back to headline a DAZN card on April 16, Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn told iFL TV. He said the frontrunner to face Benn is Chris van Heerden (28-2-1, 12 KOs), 34, a Southern California-based southpaw from South Africa. Benn is coming off a spectacular fourth-round knockout of former junior welterweight titlist Chris Algieri on Dec. 11 and van Heerden is coming off a first-round no decision against Jaron Ennis in December 2020. The fight ended when van Heerden was unable to continue after being cut by an accidental head butt.

Boxxer announced that it has moved its March 12 event in Newcastle, England headlined by Savannah Marshall (11-0, 9 KOs), 30, of England, defending her WBO women’s middleweight title against Femke Hermans (12-3, 5 KOs), 32, of Belgium, to April 2 (Sky Sports in U.K.). The card was moved due to Covid-related reasons but will still take place at Newcastle Utilita Arena, where Marshall retained her belt in October by second-round knockout of Lolita Muzeya. A win over Hermans will propel Marshall into a unification fight with three-belt champion Claressa Shields that is already agreed to for the undisputed title later this year. Marshall is the only person to defeat Shields, doing so when they were amateurs.

Showtime’s “ShoBox: The New Generation” returns with a quadrupleheader on March 11 at the Deadwood Mountain Grand in Deadwood, South Dakota. In the eight-round main event, junior middleweight Ardreal Holmes (11-0, 5 KOs) faces Mekhrubon Sanginov (12-0-1, 9 KOs). Also in eight-rounders, middleweight Hurshidbek Normatov (10-0, 3 KOs) meets Vernon Brown (13-1-1, 9 KOs) and lightweight Luis Acosta (12-0, 11 KOs) faces Edwin De Los Santos (13-1, 12 KOs). In the four-round opener, junior welterweight Giovanni Marquez makes his pro debut against Nelson Morales (2-0, 0 KOs). Marquez is the son of “ShoBox” commentator, 1992 U.S. Olympian and former junior middleweight world titlist Raul Marquez.

Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya announced the hiring of Philip Button and his company, Seven XV Ventures, to “spearhead all of De La Hoya’s production projects and field all Golden Boy sponsorship, branding, and corporate partnerships.” It’s a reunion between De La Hoya and Button, who once served as a De La Hoya agent when he was a senior vice president at William Morris Endeavor. Button will also explore new business ventures and investments on behalf of Golden Boy, according to the announcement. Button replaces the recently departed David Tetreault.

Masataka Taniguchi (15-3, 10 KOs), 28, a Japanese southpaw, will make his first WBO strawweight title defense in a rematch against countryman Kai Ishizawa (10-1, 9 KOs), 25, on April 22 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Ohashi Promotions announced on Tuesday. Taniguchi won the 105-pound title in December by 11th-round upset knockout of Puerto Rico’s Wilfredo Mendez. Taniguchi first faced Ishizawa in September 2019, also at Korakuen Hall, and won an eight-round unanimous decision despite being knocked down in the fifth round.

Show and tell

When WBC heavyweight titlist Deontay Wilder and lineal champion Tyson Fury met for the first time in their memorable trilogy, they battled to a heavily disputed split draw most thought Fury won by outboxing Wilder for long stretches, but a fight in which Wilder also scored two knockdowns, including a massive one in the 12th round. Naturally, there was a heavily hyped rematch, but not until after each won a pair of interim fights. When they met again it was a huge event and, in my view, perhaps the best promoted pay-per-view I’ve covered in my 22 years at ringside. When the bell rang, however, it was all Fury, who dominated. Fury knocked Wilder down in the third and fifth rounds and then stopped him in the seventh round when then-Wilder co-trainer Mark Breland threw in the towel as his man was being hammered. That act cost Breland his job as well as Wilder’s derision and harsh words for months.

Fury and Wilder would meet again in the epic 2021 fight of the year to complete their series in a fight Fury won by 11th-round knockout, but fight No. 2 took place on Feb. 22, 2020 — two years ago on Tuesday and was the last big boxing event before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the sport and much of the world for the next year and a half or so. Here are both versions of the program in my collection: the regular one and an extremely limited edition (just 125 copies) with different cover art and trading cards of each fighter included.

Ramirez photo: Top Rank; DiBella photo: DiBella Entertainment; Munguia photo: Tom Hogan/Golden Boy

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