truTV Recap: “El Zurdo” Shutout Edwards; Magdaleno Stops Gonzalez

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CPI-75Top Rank’s card on truTV featured a battle between super middleweights Gilberto “El Zurdo” Ramirez (32-0, 24KOs) and Derek Edwards live from the State Farm Arena in Hidalgo, Texas.

 

El Zurdo ran away with this one early and remained dominant throughout the contest.

 

From the opening bell, Ramirez was the bigger puncher and the better offensive weapon. Edwards didn’t allow himself to be a punching bag, he just simply couldn’t make adjustments, but most importantly he didn’t make his punches count.

 

Ramirez had an obvious size advantage over Edwards. In fact, he towered over Edwards. But what was impressive about Ramirez was that he wasn’t just the taller fighter, he was the better puncher, even without his reach advantage.

 

Normally, you see the physically gifted fighter using his size advantage as a means of creating offense, but Ramirez was not the typical one-dimensional fighter. He was throwing punches in bunches and stringing together really impressive combinations. His punches were fluid, very fluid. Ramirez was putting punches back to back with no issue. And these weren’t your common one-two. No, these were uppercuts following a body shot and hooks digging to the body off of a side-step. Ramirez was creating angles and giving different looks.

 

Credit goes to Edwards for never quitting, but the fight was nearly stopped in the 4th when Ramirez delivered a hellacious beating. He landed several shots that straight up dazed Edwards, but he could never put him away and Edwards stayed on his feet. Even when Ramirez smelt blood and let the bombs fly, Edwards stood his ground and never faltered.

 

The fight was almost stopped again in the 8th after Edwards took consecutive head shots of the devastating variety. Edwards’ trainer, Jeff Mayweather, threatened his fighter that he’d stop the fight if he couldn’t protect himself. Mayweather told Edwards that he’d stop it if he suffered another one-sided beating like in the previous round.

 

The fight went the distance and after the 10th round bell sounded it was clear that El Zurdo would remain undefeated.

 

It was a shutout on every judges’ scorecard, giving Ramirez the unanimous victory.

 

Ramirez told Thaboxingvoice.com in a post-fight interview through his translator that he is on the verge of becoming the next big Mexican superstar and that a world title is in his near future.

 

In the evening’s co-feature, Diego Magdaleno took on Jose “El Chelo” Gonzalez in a 12round bout with potential mandatory title implications for the winner.

 

The first couple of rounds were essentially feel out rounds, and not much was done by either fighter. While the action was dull and fans continued to break out into random fits of boos, Magdaleno was definitely the only fighter with any regard for offense.

 

Magdaleno didn’t do much, but he at least attempted to get inside with quick bursts of offense.

 

In round 3, Magdaleno began to have more success as he attempted to fight his way inside by utilizing a jab first approach. He didn’t bother to double it up and there were times when he resorted back to crashing in, but when he threw the jab and then stepped forward he was much better off for it. He was able to line up his opponent better and not smother his punches.

 

Still, Magdaleno was playing it a bit safe and he was unwilling to fall into Gonzalez’s range of power. The longer and taller Gonzalez was able to land punches from further away, which prompted Magdaleno to always stay out of his own punching range. Instead, he got in quickly and threw what he could before getting right back out.

 

Gonzalez was successful when he sat back on his punches and allowed Diego to come to him, but that mindset is what caused the entire arena to boo. With Gonzalez sitting back and Diego jumping in, head-butts were a frequent occurrence.

 

For some strange reason, Gonzales switched to southpaw in the middle of the fight. He was actually having some decent success the round before and then decided to switch his stance. He was sloppy with his defense and telegraphed his power punches out of the southpaw stance. Gonzalez was essentially throwing points away every time he decided to switch.

 

Diego found a groove and began to change levels as the fight came to its inexplicable conclusion. Diego was landing the harder leather and Gonzales was failing to take anything away from the opportunities and openings he was being given.

 

In the 7th round, Magdaleno hit Gonzalez with a hard body shot that landed flush on his sternum. Gonzalez hit the deck hard and was in obvious pain, but the referee appeared confused and initially ruled it a foul without fully comprehending what went wrong.

 

Gonzalez was trying to sell the idea that he was hit illegally, but he changed his story several times. First, he complained of a head-butt, then a low blow, and for some reason began favoring his knee. The acting wasn’t first class but it was good enough to get the referee to issue him a five minute break for the foul.

 

However, Gonzalez had no intention of continuing and ended up quitting. The referee ruled that Gonzalez could not continue due to an illegal foul, which should’ve prompted a judge’s decision. Instead, the referee wised up to Gonzalez’s lack of desire to continue and inappropriately gave Magdaleno the TKO victory.

 

Fortunately, Magdaleno should’ve been awarded the TKO victory in the first place, so no harm done. Also, Magdaleno was probably actually leading on the scorecards and would’ve won a judge’s decision as well.