This Friday
night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, California, lightweight
hopeful Luis Ramos faces the well-worn David Rodela. At 19-0 (8), the young
southpaw from Santa Ana is at the stage of his career where he will soon make
the jump to see if he's a legitimate prospect, then contender, or just merely
suspect. However, unlike many other fledgling boxers, he doesn't seem to be in
too much of a hurry.
Ramos told
Maxboxing, "I'm happy how I am right now. There's no rush. I'll take it
one fight at a time."
In Rodela, 15-4-3
(6), he is facing a rugged guy who's fighting for his career.
"I
know he's a tough guy. He fights with a lot of heart," said Ramos, "so
I gotta go in there and put up a good show and put another loss on his
book."
Ramos gets
past this fight and Golden Boy Promotions will start to place him in more
significant bouts in 2012. Eric Gomez, the company’s matchmaker stated, "This
might end up being maybe the last fight of the year for him and we'll bring him
back [next year] but this is probably one of the last developmental fights. I
think he'll be ready. He'll be ready sometime early next year, some sort of
step-up fight, kinda like what we're doing with Sharif Bogere (who faces
Francisco Contreras on October 7th), either if it’s ‘ShoBox’ or whatever
it might be, ESPN, but yeah, he's ready to go."
Ramos’
manager, “Classy” Frank Espinoza, says, "I think this will certainly show
us where he's at during this particular time and I see bigger and better things
coming up ahead because this will take him to a different plateau where now, we
can start looking at ‘ShoBox.’ We can start looking at bigger venues where he
can be exposed a little bit better on television and bigger networks."
Ramos got
past the always tough Jose Hernandez back in March in the same venue he
performs in this Friday night, in what was a pretty significant, early career
examination. Ramos earned a hard-earned eight-round verdict over the tough
Texan.
"We knew
it was going to be a test. It was going to be a tough fight and he did pretty
well," said Gomez. "It's a tough guy, a tough rugged guy that takes a
punch, makes good fights, dangerous and he passed it. That was a very, very
good fight. For me, personally, that was like a turning point. I think that
graduated him to the next level." Espinoza concurs with Gomez, adding, "For
a young guy like Ramos to control the fight showed me a lot because the guy he
was fighting was very difficult and he'd give everybody problems and headaches.
So the way Ramos handled him, he just came out really well. I was
impressed."
If you want
to go anywhere in this business, you have to get past guys like Hernandez and
Rodela, the latter best known in recent years for being a sparring partner for
Manny Pacquiao.
"This fight with Rodela, it's not an easy fight. Rodela's coming to fight.
He's coming to redeem himself. He suffered a few losses," said Gomez,
referencing Rodela's last outing, a six-round decision loss to Lonnie Smith. "So
this is going to be a good fight. Somewhat of a crossroads, crosstown fight,
two guys from the general area, Southern California and we'll see. We'll see
what happens. If he gets past Rodela with flying colors, he's ready. He's ready
for some step-up fights."
This bout
was originally scheduled to take place on the Amir Khan-Zab Judah undercard at
the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas back in July before Ramos was mugged in the early
morning while doing his roadwork.
"There
was some talk on the Rodela side saying a few things, that he was scared to
fight him. Well, we would never make up stories like that," said Espinoza.
"It did actually happen, so I think inside, Ramos is ready to make a
statement with Rodela and I wouldn't be surprised to see him stop him. That's
what I'd like to see him do."
And if he should
do that, he just might be ready to make the next step but the soft-spoken Ramos
says, "Seriously, I don't know. I'm just focused on the fights they put in
front of me. Whoever it is, I'm just focused on that guy and we'll see. No rush
for me."
