Top Rank world titleholders Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and Jerwin Ancajas got their expected wins last night in Corpus Christi, Texas. Both men picked up knockout wins with Zurdo finishing Habib Ahmed in the sixth round while Ancajas took ten to get rid of Israel Gonzalez.
Zurdo Ramirez (37-0, 25 KOs) was utterly dominant in the main event. Habib Ahmed (25-1-1, 17 KOs) did not look like a competitive challenge on paper, but there is always the hope that we might get a surprise from these unknowns. It does happens sometimes, such as in the case of Julius Indongo, but this was certainly not that.
The Mexican super middleweight titleholder landed a big left hand almost immediately in the first round. That set the tone for the round and the fight. The Ghanaian title challenger peaked in the second round in which he was able to get a little work done, but not nearly as much as Ramirez. Zurdo’s uppercuts were particularly effective.
The third round brought a clash of heads that opened a pretty bad cut over Gilberto Ramirez’s left eye, but that actually turned out to be bad for Ahmed. Likely afraid of the fight being stopped, Ramirez suddenly fought with an extreme sense of urgency. He turned up the volume and absolutely battered his opponent around the ring. The increased intensity had Habib Ahmed looking like he didn’t want to be there anymore by the end of the fourth. By that point he had started moving away more and fighting back a lot less.
The one sided nature of the fight started reaching that point of becoming uncomfortable to watch in the fifth. Gilberto was landing massive shots. Habib was bringing little back while borderline running away. I was pretty surprised to see him get through the round and even more surprised when the Ghana native came out for the sixth round.
He didn’t get a seventh. The increasingly unnecessary assault continued with Ahmed entirely in retreat as Zurdo bullied him around the ring with power punches, upstairs and down. The body shots were particularly brutal. Finally, in the round’s last minute and two minutes too late, Ahmed’s corner finally saved him. Post fight Zurdo called for the winner of the World Boxing Super Series tournament, saying that Bob Arum has promised the fight. No one would complain about that match up, but it won’t be possible until the end of the year.
This fight was a mismatch and there wasn’t much to learn from it, but Gilberto Ramirez remains my top super middleweight in the sport. There really isn’t much else to say here. Zurdo did more or less what he should have done with this level of opposition, picking up his first stoppage since 2014 along the way. Hopefully next time out he gets a better adversary.
Jerwin Ancajas (29-1-1, 20 KOs) started the show’s opener with a bang, dropping Israel Gonzalez (21-2, 8 KOs) on a stiff right hook less than a minute into the fight. The largely overmatched Mexican challenger wasn’t hurt badly by the shot, but it did serve as a warning that we were likely getting the mismatch that was expected. The second round was further confirmation. Ancajas landed lightning quick one twos while his game but overmatched opponent didn’t really land anything of note at all.
Gonzalez upped his work rate early in round three. While it worked for the first minute or so, by the end of the round Jerwin had clearly won it again. His jabs were particularly stiff.
Normally I like to right a couple sentences about each round as I cover the fight, but it became clear by round four that, like in the main event, I was going to start being redundant in a hurry. Israel Gonzalez was a very tough and durable challenger. He would go on try a big surge every few rounds and have minor success too. He just never really came close to winning a round. A lot of the time he was simply getting beat up.
After slowly and patiently putting a beating on Gonzalez, the end came in the tenth round. A lightning quick right hook had the Mexican on shaky legs and it didn’t take long for Ancajas to put him down. Immediately upon beating the count and rising, Jerwin landed the first giant left hand he threw and the fight was stopped with Israel Gonzalez on the canvas, clearly done.
There was a lot of talk during the fight on whether or not Jerwin Ancajas is the next Manny Pacquiao. The answer, of course, is that he is not. For one, when Manny Pacquiao was fighting at super flyweight, he was twenty years old. Jerwin is 26 and will never climb through the weights like the eight weight class world titleholder Manny Pacquiao. They are both southpaw Filipinos, but stylistically the only real similarity I see is their footwork and angles on a one two. When Ancajas drives his jab, slides a little, and tosses his left behind it in one fluid motion, I briefly see Manny Pacquiao. Otherwise I see Jerwin Ancajas. That isn’t a bad thing to see either. He is an excellent world titleholder in an excellent weight class.
