With the busiest weekend of the year so far for pure quantity of relevant fights in the books, we have had plenty of quality action to discuss. On Saturday night’s Top Rank PPV all three Mexican fighters in featherweight Oscar Valdez (22-0, 19 KOs), super middleweight Gilberto Ramirez (35-0, 24 KOs) and super bantamweight Jessie Magdaleno (25-0, 18 KOs) successfully defended their WBO belts in three rather different ways. Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson also made his pro debut.
The three matches leading up to the main event failed to deliver bouts that were both entertaining and competitive, but the main event made up for it and then some. Oscar Valdez passed the toughest test of his career in a better than expected performance by tough Colombian Miguel Marriaga (25-2, 21 KOs). Through six rounds the fight was back and forth with a lot of action and neither man able to take clear control of the fight. In round seven Valdez focused his gameplan on double jabs, much straighter right hands, and lateral movement to seize control of the next three rounds.
Marriaga came flying out in the tenth desperate to re-assert himself and had a spectacular first half of the round. Unfortunately for him, however, he got caught with a massive left hook that put him down and hurt him badly. Valdez spent the next minute landing big blows trying to finish Marriaga, but when the Colombian contender found his legs again in the last thirty seconds he rallied back huge. Marriaga probably had the best round in which the fighter lost 10-8 that I have ever seen, but it had to be scored that way in my opinion with how badly Marriaga was hurt when he was dropped. This is a round of the year candidate for sure.
Marriaga continued the momentum he started (with a brief pause for almost being KO’d) in the tenth into the eleventh where he had an excellent round, but Valdez valiantly rallied back to win the twelfth and final round by first refocusing on his movement and then sitting down on his punches in the last forty five seconds of the round. Scores came back 116-111, which is what I had, and two 118-109s which were disappointingly wide in Valdez’s favor. We all know this card ideally would have been able to find another home and not be forced into ending up on PPV, but for those who bought it this fight was at least worth the price of admission.
In the co-main event on the PPV Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez outpointed Max Bursak of Germany in what was a somewhat tedious fight to watch. Since he joined the world stage in his title win over longtime top fighter Arthur Abraham, Ramirez has stuck to the same gameplan in which he uses his reach and athleticism to comfortably box from the outside in his southpaw stance. Zurdo, which translates in English boxing terms to Southpaw, did not try very hard to become the first person to stop Bursak. That doesn’t seem to be who he is despite his Mexican heritage. With that said, Zurdo Ramirez may have the most longevity of the three Mexican stars featured on the card given the more action friendly styles of the Valdez and Magdaleno. Bursak lost two points throughout the bout and the scores came back 120-106 shut outs across the board, including on my card. After the fight Ramirez called out both GGG and Canelo, neither of whom even fight up at his weight.
Rio silver medalist Shakur Stevenson made his much hyped pro debut in between the Magdaleno and Ramirez fights with a technical decision win over club fighter Edgar Brito (3-3-1, 2 KOs). Stevenson, fighting at featherweight, looked like the good prospect he is, but I did not think he looked spectacular as his punches really appeared to lack real pop. Stevenson is clearly a great, quick athlete, however, and at 19 the sky may really be the limit. At some point in the bout Stevenson hurt his hand which was visible as he shook it out a few times, but he kept throwing it. Curiously, and somewhat suspiciously given the future money fighter’s hand injury, the fight was stopped after five for a cut on a Brito that looked completely harmless. The fight then went to the cards. Stranger yet all three judges scored a sixth round that didn’t happen for Shakur Stevenson. Why? Because boxing, that is why.
In the PPV opener Jessie Magdaleno (25-0, 18 KOs) smashed overmatched Brazilian Adeilson Dos Santos (18-3, 14 KOs) in two. Dos Santos had been stopped three fights ago in his native Brazil against an opponent who went on to badly struggle after beating him. He has no wins of note and his most prominent opponent to date was Kid Galahad who he lost a wide, 2014 decision to in the UK. This looked like a waste of time for Jessie Magdaleno on paper and it proved to be in the end as well. After the fight Madgdaleno actually called out Guillermo Rigondeaux, but I doubt Top Rank will let that happen until Rigo is clearly ready to be dethroned. There is just no money in the risk for anyone.
