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Arizona Whiz Kid Jesus Ramos has a Big Upside and an interesting Back Story
If all the pieces come together, the PBC card on Feb. 5 at Mandalay Bay will have a distinct Arizona flavor. Welterweight Abel Ramos, the pride of Casa Grande, is in the co-feature against Josesito Lopez, a two-time world title challenger. Phoenix featherweights Keenan Carbajal and Carlos Castro step up in class with Leo Santa Cruz (Carbajal) and Luis Nery (Castro) providing the opposition. And Abel Ramos’s nephew, fast rising super welterweight Jesus Ramos, takes on upset-maker Vladimir Hernandez.
Abel Ramos followed his split-decision loss to Yordenis Ugas with his career-best performance, a six-round demolition of Omar Figueroa. If he gets past the veteran Lopez, as expected, he will likely fight the winner of the featured attraction which sees Keith Thurman returning to the ring after a 31-month absence to meet Mario Barrios. A rematch with new WBA champion Ugas, who dethroned Manny Pacquiao, is also a possibility. However, it is the younger Ramos, 20-year-old Jesus Ramos, who is attracting the most buzz. Currently 17-0 (14 KOs), he has the look of a future star.
Boxing is family tradition in the Ramos households in Casa Grande, a fast-growing city of 55,000 that sits 45 miles south of Phoenix and 70 miles north of Tucson. Jesus’s father boxed as an amateur as did Abel’s father and his two brothers. In recent years, the family has become more identified with boxing with the opening of the Ramos Boxing Academy, a gym that sits in a large shopping mall known as the Promenade. It serves people aged seven and up, both active and aspiring boxers and folks that just want to stay physically fit.
Jesus Ramos and his three younger siblings were born in Casa Grande to immigrants from the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Jesus’s father had an assortment of jobs, including that of a welder and a mailman, before developments allowed him to pursue his passion as a full-time boxing coach. When he is at home, Jesus gets to practice at the academy in a regulation-size ring as opposed to the miniature ring in the family garage that was his pitch when he was first starting out.
His parents gave him his nickname “Mono.” It’s a word with many meanings when translated to English, but here the reference is to an action figure of a mischievous little boy. Every pay-per-fight was an opportunity for a family get-together and the young Jesus soaked it all in, “not just the fight,” he says, “but the ring walk, the music; every little detail.” His favorite fighters were Ricardo “Finito” Lopez and Marco Antonio Barrera, both Future Hall of Famers, and he aspired to follow in their footsteps.
Jesus turned pro at age 17 in Mexico. In recent years, that’s become a common pathway for precocious West Coast boxers who are too young to compete as professionals in the United States because of age requirements. Devin Haney and David Benavidez come quickly to mind among other U.S.-born boxers that started their pro careers as teenagers in Mexico.
Jesus Ramos had his first eight fights in Mexico in places like Cheer’s Bar, a raucous, two-story, late-night dance hall in Tijuana. Judging by his motley competition – none of his opponents lasted beyond the second round – he would have been better served by staying an amateur, but he disagrees, saying it was good preparation for a career in a sport where the unexpected is normal. He laughs when he recalls the time when he found upon entering the ring that his opponent was a different guy than the fellow he faced-off against at the weigh-in.
Precocious boxers tend to quit school early, or be home-schooled if they wish to stay on track to earn a diploma. But Jesus managed to attend class with his chums including a semester at the local junior college while juggling school with his burgeoning boxing career. “My parents [his mom is a pre-school teacher] didn’t believe in home schooling,” he says. “They wanted me to have a normal life.”
This past October, Jesus Ramos was honored at his high school’s homecoming football game. He was on the field for the ceremonial coin toss and gave a pre-game pep talk to the team. Vista Grande High School is a fairly new school without much of a sports tradition, but on that Friday afternoon they turned away visiting Yuma High by a 28-20 score.
Perhaps Jesus has a future as a motivational speaker, but he has other thoughts about his life after boxing. With his ring earnings he bought a 26-foot delivery truck (no, he doesn’t plan to drive it), with an eye toward branching out into the trucking business. Down the road, he envisions building a gym in Flagstaff, Arizona, that would be dedicated wholly to boxing.
Casa Grande is on the Sonoran Desert. During June, July, and August, the high temperature seldom dips below 100 degrees. Flagstaff, surrounded by mountains, is in northern Arizona and weather-wise it might just as well be in Montana. In the winter months, it can get brutally cold.
When Jesus Ramos looks at Flagstaff, he is reminded of Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he spent many weeks while serving as a sparring partner for Terence Crawford. Both cities are more than a mile above sea level and the altitude is considered ideal for athletes, especially those that participate in sports that place a premium on stamina.
Flagstaff is on Ramos’s radar screen for another reason. It is home to Northern Arizona University where his sister Briana is a freshman. It’s all about family with the Ramos’s and Briana is undoubtedly the only person in the NIU girls’ dormitory that can claim to have once worked in the corner of a professional boxer.
Briana was pressed into service on the day after Christmas of 2020 at the Shrine Expo Center in Los Angeles when other members of the Ramos family were spending the holidays with kinfolk in Sinaloa. This was a so-called “bubble show,” a show held without fans because of the pandemic with tight restrictions as to the number of people each combatant was allowed to bring with him. Briana was put in charge of the stool. “She was more nervous than me,” recalls Jesus who made it easy on his little sister by bringing the fight to a premature conclusion. His opponent was pulled out after four rounds.
Jesus and his uncle Abel, 10 years older than Jesus, have been preparing for their Feb. 5 assignments in Las Vegas. With them is a quiet young man, Abelardo Loya, a registered nurse from Chihuahua, who has been conscripted as a massage therapist. And how did he come to be part of Team Ramos? “He’s Abel’s girlfriend’s cousin,” explains Jesus.
Jesus “Mono” Ramos, it says here, has a big upside. And as he advances, Casa Grande’s first family of boxing will attract more notice, perhaps eventually rivaling Southern California’s fighting Garcias’ (Eduardo, Robert, and Mikey) as a noted family dynasty.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 303: Spotlights on Lightweights and More
Those lightweights.
Whether junior lights, super lights or lightweights, it’s the 130-140 divisions where most of boxing’s young stars are found now or in the past.
Think Oscar De La Hoya, Sugar Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather.
Floyd Schofield (17-0, 12 KOs) a Texas product, hungers to be a star and takes on Mexico’s Rene Tellez Giron (20-3, 13 KOs) in a 12-round lightweight bout on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.
DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotion card that includes a female undisputed flyweight championship match pitting Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz and Gabriela Fundora.
Like a young lion looking to flex, Schofield (pictured on the left) is eager to meet all the other young lions and prove they’re not equal.
“I’ve been in the room with Shakur, Tank. I want to give everyone a good fight. I feel like my preparation is getting better, I work hard, I’ve dedicated my whole life to this sport,” said Schofield naming fellow lightweights Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
Now he meets Mexico’s Tellez who has never been stopped.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” said Tellez.
Even in Las Vegas.
Verona, New York
Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a WBC junior lightweight title rematch finds Robson Conceicao (19-2-1, 9 KOs) looking to prove superior to former titlist O’Shaquie Foster (22-3, 12 KOs) on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y. ESPN+ will stream the Top Rank fight card.
Last July, Conceicao and Foster clashed and after 12 rounds the title changed hands from Foster to the Brazilian by split decision.
“I feel that a champion is a fighter who goes out there and doesn’t run around, who looks for the fight, who tries to win, and doesn’t just throw one or two punches and then moves away,” said Conceicao.
Foster disagrees.
“I hope he knows the name of the game is to hit and not get hit. That’s the name of the game,” said Foster.
Also on the same card is lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla (21-0, 16 KOs) who fights Mexico’s Jesus Perez Campos (25-5, 18 KOs).
Perez recently defeated former world champion Jojo Diaz last February in California.
“We’re made for challenges. I like challenges,” said Perez.
Muratalla likes challenges too.
“I think these fights are the types of fights I need to show my skills and to prove I deserve those title fights,” said Fontana’s Muratalla.
Female Undisputed Flyweight Championship
WBA, WBC and WBO flyweight titlist Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz (15-1, 6 KOs meets IBF titlist Gabriela Fundora (14-0, 6 KOs) on Saturday Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. DAZN will stream the clash for the undisputed flyweight championship.
Argentina’s Alaniz clashed twice against former WBA, WBC champ Marlen Esparza with their first encounter ending in a dubious win for the Texas fighter. In fact, three of Esparza’s last title fights were scored controversially.
But against Alaniz, though they fought on equal terms, Esparza was given a 99-91 score by one of the judges though the world saw a much closer contest. So, they fought again, but the rematch took place in California. Two judges deemed Alaniz the winner and one Esparza for a split-decision win.
“I’m really happy to be here representing Argentina. We are ready to fight. Nothing about this fight has to do with Marlen. So, I hope she (Fundora) is ready. I am ready to prepare myself for the great fight of my life,” said Alaniz.
In the case of Fundora, the extremely tall American fighter at 5’9” in height defeated decent competition including Maria Santizo. She was awarded a match with IBF flyweight titlist Arely Mucino who opted for the tall youngster over the dangerous Kenia Enriquez of Mexico.
Bad choice for Mucino.
Fundora pummeled the champion incessantly for five rounds at the Inglewood Forum a year ago. Twice she battered her down and the fight was mercifully stopped. Fundora’s arm was raised as the new champion.
Since that win Fundora has defeated Christina Cruz and Chile’s Daniela Asenjo in defense of the IBF title. In an interesting side bit: Asenjo was ranked as a flyweight contender though she had not fought in that weight class for seven years.
Still, Fundora used her reach and power to easily handle the rugged fighter from Chile.
Immediately after the fight she clamored for a chance to become undisputed.
“It doesn’t get better than this, especially being in Las Vegas. This is the greatest opportunity that we can have,” said Fundora.
It should be exciting.
Fights to Watch
Sat. ESPN+ 2:50 p.m. Robson Conceicao (19-2-1) vs O’Shaquie Foster (22-3).
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Floyd Schofield (17-0) vs Rene Tellez Giron (20-3); Gabriela Alaniz (15-1) vs Gabriela Fundora (14-0).
Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy
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Bakhram Murtalaziev was the Fighter of the Month in October
As we close the book on October, let’s look back at the month’s stellar performances. Kenshiro Teraji added another exclamation point to his brilliant career with an 11th-round stoppage of Cristofer Rosales. England’s Jack Catterall, considered no more than a decent domestic-level talent for most of his career, showed that he had been underrated with a comprehensive 12-round decision over declining Regis Prograis. But the top performance, by a landslide, was delivered by Bakhram Murtalaziev who annihilated Tim Tszyu on Oct. 19 in Orlando, Florida.
Murtalaziev was undefeated (22-0, 16 KOs) and the reigning IBF junior middleweight champion, but he was the underdog and the “B” side. As champions go, and there are roughly five dozen across the 17 weight divisions, the California-based Russian ranked among the least well-known. He had won his title in Berlin with an 11th-round stoppage of an unexceptional 38-year-old German-Ecuadorian campaigner, Jack Culcay, and he would be making his first defense.
Managed by Egis Klimas who also handles Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko, among others, Bakhram Murtalaziev came from a good barn in the vernacular of a horseplayer, but on paper that alone was insufficient to get him over the hump against Tim Tszyu who a few short months earlier was widely considered the best 154-pound boxer in the world.
That was before he met up with Sebastian Fundora who blemished his record, but that setback could have been written off as a fluke.
As we recall, Tszyu was scheduled to fight Keith Thurman in the initial PBC offering on Amazon Prime Video, but Thurman suffered a biceps injury in training and Fundora was bumped up from the undercard to fill the breach. With only 12 days’ notice, Tim Tszyu went from fighting a five-foot-seven fighter who fights out of an orthodox stance to fighting a southpaw who stood almost a full foot taller. The “Towering Inferno” has his limitations, but poses a special problem to anyone, let alone an opponent with little time to formulate a good game plan.
Tszyu was hampered in the Fundora fight by a gash on his hairline that hampered his vision. The injury happened in the second round when he ducked under Fundora and walked into an elbow. The gash bled copiously throughout the fight and yet the best that Fundora could do was win a split (albeit fair) decision.
To say that Tszyu failed to rebound from the Fundora misadventure would be putting it mildly. Murtalaziev steamrolled him, knocking him to the canvas four times in all before Tszyu’s corner tossed in the towel at the 1:55 mark of the third stanza. It was painful to watch. Referee Chris Young was faulted for allowing the match to continue as long as it did. Compounding Tszyu’s misery, his celebrated father, a first ballot Hall of Famer, was ringside. Kostya Tszyu hadn’t seen his oldest son fight in the flesh since Tim’s pro debut in 2016.
Although the dichotomy is imperfect, Tim Tszyu, who turns 30 on Saturday, is more of a puncher than a boxer. That may work against him so far as clawing his way back to a position of prominence. The noted boxing coach Stephen “Breadman” Edwards, a keen student of the history of boxing in the modern era, expressed this sentiment in a Q and A story for Boxing Scene. “Destructive fighters usually don’t come back to full capacity after bad KO losses,” he said, citing John Mugabi, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Sonny Liston, and Naseem Hamed to illustrate his point. Moreover, added Edwards, “No one will ever be afraid of him again.”
But there were two stories that emerged from the Murtalaziev-Tszyu fight. Tim Tszyu crashed, but Bakhram Murtalaziev emerged from obscurity, announcing his presence (pardon the cliché) as a force to be reckoned with. As for his next assignment, the best guess is that it will come against Sebastian Fundora or Errol Spence Jr. who are expected to meet early next year. And based on Murtalaziev’s stunning performance in Orlando, it will be impossible to bet against him.
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Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later
Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later
By TSS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT JAMIE REBNER — In sports, middle-aged athletes are not supposed to beat opponents who are half their age and in their athletic primes. Only the greatest ones can use guile, technique, and experience to compensate for the dulling of speed, reflexes, and athleticism that have unavoidably eroded with time.
That is why George Foreman’s feat of reclaiming the heavyweight title at 45 is so impressive. It was thirty years ago this coming Tuesday, Nov 5, 1994, that Foreman scored a monumental upset in knocking out Michael Moorer to win back the title he had lost twenty years prior against Muhammad Ali in The Rumble in the Jungle. In doing so, Big George became the oldest heavyweight champion, breaking the record previously held by Jersey Joe Walcott, who had won the title at 38.
When Foreman beat Moorer, he was in the twilight of his second career, a comeback that began in 1987. George had retired in 1977 after losing to Jimmy Young and experiencing a spiritual awakening in his locker room. That led him to become a minister and devote himself to his family and congregation. During his retirement, he opened a youth center in Houston, which required much financial support, prompting him to return to the ring.
After winning 24 straight fights from 1987-1990, Foreman lost his first title shot by decision to Evander Holyfield in 1991. He rebounded from that loss with three more wins before getting a crack at the WBO title against Tommy Morrison in 1993. But his performance against Morrison was disappointing and he lost another decision. After that, Foreman was out of the ring for 17 months before he was gifted another title shot against Moorer.
Foreman got that gift because Moorer, due to his sullen demeanor and curtness with the media, was not a draw with the fans. He was also an unproven champion, having beaten Holyfield for two belts only seven months prior. So. Moorer needed a name opponent who could bring in the crowds for his first title defense. And the other top heavyweights like Oliver McCall (WBC champ), Lennox Lewis, and Riddick Bowe didn’t have close to Foreman’s drawing power. So. deserving or not, Foreman was chosen as the challenger to make a fight that would be worth the public’s attention and pockets.
Even Foreman was surprised by getting selected to fight Moorer. “I never in my wildest imagination thought I’d get a title shot again,” he told Associated Press sports columnist Tim Dahlberg. Still, George was determined to make his third time a charm.
But as motivated as George was, there was an irrefutable gap in speed between himself and the much younger champion. From the opening bell, Moorer used his superior quickness and reflexes to make Foreman look stiff and slow. And although George landed punches early on, he fired them one at a time while Moorer countered with multiple shots. But despite Moorer’s advantage in connects, his trainer Teddy Atlas advised him from the get-go not to stand in front of Foreman and make himself a stationary target for a right-hand bomb.
But Moorer failed to heed that advice as he continued to outwork Foreman in the middle rounds. Although he was winning, Moorer’s overconfidence kept him at close quarters, and he continued to circle unwisely to his left and into Foreman’s dangerous right hand. And despite absorbing many quality shots, Foreman never appeared hurt or discouraged thanks to his granite chin and unyielding resolve. He was determined to win and he was willing to walk through as many flush shots as he needed to do so.
With Moorer content to stay in range, Foreman gladly returned his firepower and he landed some telling right crosses, uppercuts, and plenty of thudding body blows during the battle. And while Moorer continued to pile up points and rounds, as long as George was marching forward and throwing shots, he had a puncher’s chance.
And with a minute to go in round ten, that punch came. After missing a three-punch combination, Foreman scored with a one-two, with the right hand landing on the forehead. He immediately repeated that combination but this time aimed the right hand lower on Moorer’s jaw. That slight adjustment caused his bulldozer right to collide perfectly with Moorer’s chin, sending the champion crashing to the canvas and sprawled onto his back. The champion couldn’t beat the count, and just like that, the fight was over, Moorer’s short-lived title run ending before it ever truly began.
With a single, shattering blow, Foreman etched his name into boxing history. Wearing the same trunks from Zaire 20 years before, he was now heavyweight champion of the world once again. It was a shocking result that defied conventional wisdom since seldom do 45-year-old boxers score knockouts over champions in their athletic primes. But Foreman reminded us that he was anything but your typical quadragenarian. He was special, and he had two distinct heavyweight championship reigns to prove it.
—
About the author:
Jamie Rebner lives in Toronto, Canada. He has been a freelance boxing writer since 2016 and his writing has appeared in The Fight City, Boxing News Online, The Ring, and Ringside Seat magazine. His Substack blog is Fight Fundamental, and he is currently writing a book about George Foreman’s comeback. He is also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow him on Twitter @J_NReb.
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