Zurdo Ramirez Skips Weigh In- Rosado Main Event Cancelled

They’re were concerns heading into the weekend that light heavyweight contender Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez had a scheduled mismatch in the Golden Boy Promotions main event that would turn into a squash fight against former world title contender Gabe Rosado. Well, there’s no longer a need to have concern.

That’s, because the former 168 lb world champion was a no-show at the weigh-in Friday afternoon in Long Beach, California, as he was apparently as much as 10 lb. or more overweight for the 175 lb. limit.

Gabe Rosado says Zurdo Ramirez came in today at 187. Confirming what I was told earlier. Zurdo did attempt to come down more at 182.6. pic.twitter.com/47Z5QPI8nq

— FIGHT HUB MARCOS (@heyitsmarcosv) March 17, 2023

This embarrassing situation was confirmed Friday mid-day Pacific time, when Golden Boy announced the fight was off and refunds would be offered for those that had purchased tickets for the Pyramid Arena on the Long Beach State University campus.

Ticket refund requests will be honored up until event doors open at 3:00 p.m. PT. Please reach out to your point of purchase to submit a refund request. pic.twitter.com/ZKPV531Vg5

— Golden Boy (@GoldenBoyBoxing) March 17, 2023

Ramirez, 44-1, 30 KOs, was headlining and making his 2023 return to the ring after being dominated by WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol last November in Abu Dhabi.  That handed Ramirez his first career loss after he previously held the WBO 168 lb. world championship for two and half years and five title defenses.

This would have been an attempt to restart his hopes of getting back into title contention at light heavyweight with what everybody viewed was going to be a very easy opponent who is really more of a middleweight or super middleweight than a light heavyweight.

Our Dan Rafael learned that Ramirez was more than seven pounds over the limit and therefore didn’t bother to weigh in, officiallly.

Zurdo was so over the 175 contract weight he didn't come to the scale to weigh in. Unofficially he was 182.6. His DAZN main event Saturday vs. Gabriel Rosado is canceled. The show goes on with #DiazGesta now the main event. #boxing

— Dan Rafael (@DanRafael1) March 17, 2023

Rosado, 26-16-1, 15 KOs, has been beaten in each of his three three bouts. That includes being beaten by Jaime Munguia in a middleweight bout in November 2021. His next two fights in 2022 were defeats to Shane Mosley Jr. and Ali Akhmedov, while fighting them at super middleweight.

As Golden Boy also confirmed in their announcement, the scheduled co-feature between former junior lightweight World Champ Joseph “JoJo” Diaz and his Filipino opponent Mercito Gesta will now be elevated to the main event Saturday night on DAZN.

Diaz, 32-3-1, is “comeback mode” himself. The former IBF 130 lb. world champ has lost his last two fights, including being beaten decisively over 12 rounds by Devin Haney in a WBC lightweight world title clash in December 2021.

Gesta, who lives and trains in San Diego, is 33-3-3 and should be a solid test in what’s now, the main event for Golden Boy.