Jessie Magdaleno heads down featherweight title trail

The big boys are gonna hit the Hangar!

On Saturday, March 23, # 1 ranked heavyweight contender Kubrat Pulev will go up against Bogdan Dinu in a 10-round clash at The Hangar in Costa Mesa, California.

The card, promoted by Top Rank Boxing, will be shown live on the ESPN platform.

Also, former world champion Jessie Magdaleno will face off against fellow, former champion Rico Ramos in a 10-round featherweight bout. The winner of the Magdaleno-Ramos clash could see themselves slotted into a world title shot later in the year so the potential upside is huge for the winner.

Magdaleno is a former WBO super bantamweight champion and will be making his debut in the featherweight division.

Ramos, of Pico Rivera, California, held the WBA super featherweight title in 2011 and challenged for the WBA featherweight title in 2014.

It will be almost a year out of the ring for Las Vegas’ Magdaleno so he is anxious to get back to work. He lost his title 11-months ago when he was stopped by African contender Isaac Dogboe in a back and forth battle at the Liacouras Centre in Philadelphia. It was the 2nd defense of the WBO world super bantamweight belt that he won when he upset Nonito Donaire in Las Vegas in November of 2016. In his first title defense, Magdaleno had stopped Brazilian contender Adeilson Dos Santos in Carson, California in April of 2017

One of the key elements of his preparation heading into the fight will be the fact that he has been training to fight at 126-pounds, moving up from the 122-pound weight class. Hitting the right number on the scales at super bantamweight had been getting harder and harder so the added 4-pounds will make the fight week weight cut a slightly less arduous task.

In pre-fight pressers, after the card was announced, Magdaleno was clearly excited to get back into the ring and on the hunt for a world title in the featherweight division.

"I haven’t fought in a long time, but I am ready to show the fans that I am the same guy who won the title not too long ago," Magdaleno said.

A Nevada native, born and raised, Magdaleno also re-upped his deal with Top Rank Boxing who have been promoting him his whole career. Now that he, along with longtime manger Frank Espinoza, have the business side of things taken care of he is anxious to get back into the ring and into the fights that will lead him back to the title.

And, step one is a victory over the tough and motivated Ramos.

“I feel comfortable in my new weight class”, said Magdaleno, “and now that I’m back, the goal is to become a two-weight world champion,” he said.