Gilberto Ramirez made easy work of Gevorg Khatchikian at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada through 10 rounds in the super middleweight division. It was the scheduled main event of a Top Rank card on truTV.
It was a very good fight and there were some great moments from both fighters that led to a very entertaining bout overall. Ramirez started the fight off decent enough. There were a few holes in his initial start, but he ended the first round with a workable momentum to build off of.
However, Khatchikian closed the gap in the second round and once again Ramirez was in another fight where he seemed just a bit too easy to hit. There is an argument to be made that Ramirez felt Khatchikian’s power, or lack thereof, and decided to endure the punishment as an option to get his own superior offense going.
After a four fight knockout/stoppage streak and starting off his career with 24 stoppages in 30 fights, Gilberto has now gone three fights without getting the KO/TKO victory.
This was an important fight for Ramirez as he looms as the mandatory contender for the winner of Arthur Abraham-Martin Murray being fought today for Abraham’s WBO super middleweight title in Germany.
Ramirez was able to gain the momentum back and continued his success to varying degrees over the next couple of rounds. He was once again out of the driver seat in the 5th round as Khatchikian was able to use his unusual approach to catch Ramirez a few times.
There weren’t many big moments from Ramirez, but he was clearly winning the fight. His athleticism his stellar and he puts his punches together very well. It’s hard to gauge his punching power because he has displayed hard leather in the past, but he was never very close to finishing this fight, although he did hurt his opponent to the body throughout the fight, once appeared significant towards the end of the 10 round fight.
When the final about sounded the judges turned in the predictable unanimous decision for Ramirez by the scores of 100-90 twice and 99-91.
Now, hopefully, Ramirez will get his title shot at some point in 2016 and he will surely be watching today as Abraham and Murray determine his future opponent. It would’ve been better for Ramirez to leave a more lasting impression with this fight, but he is still to be commended for not waiting out his title shot and instead opting to stay busy.
In the co-feature, Saul Rodriguez obliterated Ivan Najera in what ended up being a lightweight bout based on Najera’s continued problems with weight. Rodriguez knocked down Najera with a beautiful combination to the body and head. Najera made it to his feet, but it didn’t take long for Rodriguez to finish him moments later.
It says something that Rodriguez was able to put away a fighter that just this past year went the distance with Puerto Rican prospect Felix Verdejo.