Ramirez impressive in light heavyweight debut

Spending most of his pro career fighting at super middleweight, and with five successful title defenses, Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (40-0, 26 KOs) looked impressive in his light heavyweight debut, stopping former title challenger Tommy Karpency (29-7-1, 18 KOs) in four rounds.

Karpency in this bout walked into it with a shiner while sparring with his brother. He walked out of hit with a rib injury handed to him by the body shots Ramirez was handing out. Karpency tried to tough it out and even showed a flurry countering Ramirez in the second round but after that, it was all Ramirez. After the fourth round, Karpency was asked by the referee if he wanted to continue and chose not to continue ending the bout. He mentioned he stopped due to the rib injury in an interview post fight.

.@ramirezurdo proves to be too much for Tommy Karpency and wins his debut at 175 lbs. #LomaCrolla pic.twitter.com/5BkufcBFGg

— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) April 13, 2019

For Ramirez, we’ll see if this victory keeps him at light heavyweight or moves back down to defend his title back at 168 again.

“I feel more comfortable at 175 pounds than 168,” Ramirez said. “I’m looking for all the champions at 175. I want to be a pound-for-pound fighter.”

“I struggled making 168 for a very long time. We’ll see what’s next, but my body felt great at 175. My new head trainer, Julian Chua, did an excellent job preparing me for this fight. Karpency was a tough guy.”

If Ramirez is moving back down to super middleweight,one opponent named for him was Callum Smith. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum mentioned to ESPN Smith as well. He even went so far as booking with the fight being overseas in London at the O2 Arena and broadcasted on ESPN in the States and on Sky Sports in the United Kingdom.

It does sound like Ramirez is staying a light heavyweight and with that in mind, he will have a pick of the litter in terms of opponents. The light heavyweight choices being floated around is the WBO light heavyweight champion in Sergey Kovalev, The former titleholder Kovalev beat in  Eleider “Storm” Alvarez, IBF Champion Arthur Beterbiev and WBC and lineal champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk. All of these names in common are associated with Top Rank Boxing alongside Ramirez. I expect him to more than likely take a stab at one of these names first down the line, Alvarez would be the initial test.

A message to his fans after a triumphant light-heavyweight debut ?#LomaCrolla pic.twitter.com/WrhfMWG7iS

— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) April 13, 2019