After being forced to wait so long, to endure more than one postponement of the fight, 140 pounders Jose Ramirez and Viktor Postol finally met last night inside the “bubble” at The MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Ramirez won a close 12 round majority verdict, retaining his WBC and WBO titles via scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 114-114. Ramirez is now 26-0(18). Postol, who is now 31-3(12) certainly felt as though he did enough to have won.
Ramirez, having had the longest layoff of his career, found out how tricky, how clever 36-year-old Postol is, and how tough it is to look good against him.
Ramirez is an action fighter, but last night it took the 28-year old around half a dozen rounds before he was able to do his thing.
Postol landed plenty of jabs, and the Ukrainian used his height and reach to good effect. Ramirez acknowledged how last night’s performance was not his best.
Speaking after the fight, Ramirez said he would have to be much sharper in his next fight; one he hopes will be against Josh Taylor, the reigning WBA, and IBF 140 pound champ. A Ramirez-Taylor fight has been spoken of, and looked forward to by fans, for some time now.
Taylor, also unbeaten (and also having had a tough time of things with Postol, who the Scottish warrior defeated back in June of 2018 in a fight that was far closer than the three judges had it that night) must come through okay against Apinun Khongson on September 26 but then all being well it will be Ramirez-Taylor.
Ramirez is willing to travel to the UK for the fight:
“I’ll be limited with what we can do as far as staging an event or anything,” Ramirez’ manager Rick Mirigian said of a Taylor fight when speaking with The Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I look for this event to probably go to the highest bidder. End up in London somewhere or possibly even Vegas.”
Fans can expect a great fight if/when Ramirez and Taylor get it on. Both men truly believe they are the best in the division, and as such, both warriors will give it everything they have in an effort to prove it. As a UK fight fan, I say bring this one here next summer. Hopefully, big, big crowds will be allowed in the arenas by then.
In the meantime, let’s see how Taylor copes when he fights again after enduring his longest layoff at 11 months.