Ramirez rallies late to retain title against Zepeda

Jose Ramirez backed behind a hometown crowd of 14,034 at the Save Mart Arena in Fresno, California, came on strong in the second half of the fight to retain his WBC lightweight title with a close, 12-round majority decision over Jose Zepeda on Sunday night televised on ESPN’s “Top Rank Boxing”.

The broadcast became the 3rd highest broadcast on cable this year so far.

Jose Ramirez vs. Jose Zepeda: @trboxing on ESPN

🥊 3rd highest-rated boxing telecast on cable so far this year 🥊

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It didn’t come easy for Ramirez as the challenger Zepeda from La Puente, California used his southpaw style and footwork to keep his distance from the hard-hitting Ramirez. This abled him as well to stay out of range and keep him off-balanced throughout the early rounds of the fight.

This reflects in the final fight punch totals as Ramirez was landing more power punches to rally in the end (172 to 110 for Zepeda), It was Zepeda controlling the early stages of this fight with jab (39/174 to 28/92 for Ramirez.)

The styles clash in this was apparent early, as the right-lefty bout led to their heads coming together for the majority the of the fight including an accidental head butt that cut the champion Ramirez in the fourth round.

Zepeda would receive a cut as well in the fight in the later rounds as both men were exchanging shots in the match.

Zepeda was showing signs of fatigue as the fight went on as he had never had a fight going the entire 12-round distance before, only going past the 6th round three times in his career.

Ramirez was able to take advantage of this in later rounds down the stretch by attacking the body towards the end.

The bout went all 12 rounds and was decided by the scorecards. While judge Ray Danseco had it at a 114-114 draw, judges Chris Tellez and Glen Towbridge scored the fight 116-112 and 115-113 for Ramirez given him the victory by majority decision.

With this win, Jose Ramirez remains undefeated at 24-0 (16 KO), while Jose Zepeda falls to 30-2 (25 KO).