Jose Ramirez keeps 140-pound titles with close win over Victor Postol

After two previous Covid-19 stoppages, the WBC/WBO 140-pound unification bout between former champion Viktor Postol (31-3, 12 KO’s) and champion Jose Ramirez (26-0, 17 KO’s) finally took place on Saturday inside “The Bubble” at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Central Valley, California-native Ramirez, who has a huge and passionate following in his region, was simply too busy, aggressive and offensive for Postol who boxed nicely but didn’t appear to land anything throughout the bout that would cause an upset.

Postol was moving back all night and appeared in retreat mode as he tried to box from the outside. Bottom line - it is hard to win a fight, let alone a title, moving backwards all night.

In the end, the judges had it, 114-114, 115-113, and 116-112 for Ramirez-a majority decision victory for the champion.

Postol is awkward, they had both been in long layoffs and longer training camps, they were in a bout that had been cancelled twice, fighting in ‘The Bubble’, no crowd; in short, just some difficult conditions. It wasn’t Ramirez’s best night, but he won, and moves on.

Next up is a possible unification bout with IBF and WBA champion Josh Taylor which would be a huge bout in either California or Taylor’s native England.

Under Card

-Junior welterweight Arnold Barboza Jr. (24-0, 10 KO’s) scored a UD 10 over former world title challenger Tony Luis (29-4, 10 KO’s). Next is Alex Saucedo on the October 17 Lomachenko-Lopez undercard.

-Impressive welterweight Elvis “The Dominican Kid” Rodriguez (9-0-1, 9 KO’s) knocked out Cody Wilson (9-3, 6 KO’s) in round three with a clubbing left hand.

-Lightweight Raymond “Danger” Muratalla, (10-0, 8 KO’s), grabbed a TKO 7 over Cesar Valenzuela (15-7-1, 5 KOs). Both Raymond and Gabriel tasted the canvas.

-Bantamweight pre-school teacher Gabriel Muratalla (5-0, 3 KO’s) and older brother of Raymond, won an exciting four round unanimous decision over lanky Justice Bland (2-1, 0 KO’s).

-Middleweight Javier Martinez (2-0, 0 KO’s), defeated Rance Ward (4-2-1, 2 KOs) in a six-rounder.