Forged by farming: Jose Ramirez credits his agricultural roots for his strength

Jose Ramirez is a unified and undefeated junior welterweight boxing champion, but farming and agriculture helped establish his hardworking foundation. 

WBC and WBO junior welterweight champion Jose Ramirez had his patience tested enduring two fight postponements, but his adolescence immersed in the farming and agriculture lifestyle helped sharpen his resolve long ago.

Ramirez (25-0, 17 KOs) was originally supposed to defend his titles against Viktor Postol (31-2, 12 KOs) in February, then May, and now finally gets his crack on Saturday, Aug. 29. The pandemic has disrupted everyone’s lives. For Ramirez, 2020 has felt like purgatory.

“The fight stayed in my mind,” Ramirez told FanSided. “I wasn’t able to relax. I wasn’t able to put my guard down because I was just waiting for a new date. I felt like this whole year has been a blur. All I remember from 2020 is this training.”

The stress of an obstructed career has been frustrating for Ramirez, but it’s nothing that he can’t handle. The 28-year-old champion forged his work ethic under the hot sun of California’s San Joaquin Valley during his youth.

Ramirez grew up in the small farming town of Avenal in central California. Agriculture is the primary industry there, and it’s a large part of Ramirez’s identity. Fruit and vegetable fields are abundant in the area, and much of Avenal’s population works in the surrounding fields.

“Central California is a farming community,” explained Ramirez. “That’s what my family did for a living, and does for a living. They work in the agricultural business. That’s what I did when I was little.”

A dive into Ramirez’s biography relates how he started boxing at seven years old and matured into one of the best amateur fighters in the U.S., winning numerous national titles in the process. His success led to the 2012 Olympics, and now he holds two of the four junior welterweight titles as a professional.

Looking at his amateur pedigree, it’s easy to see why Ramirez is one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world. What’s not visible is what shaped Ramirez into the fighter he is today. Farming and agriculture gave Ramirez and his family sustenance, but it also helped him conceive an extraordinary conscientiousness.

Ramirez’s father worked the fields, and he joined him there in the summers of his teen years. No one had to push Ramirez into working grueling hours in extreme heat. He made that decision all on his own.

“It was something I wanted to do,” said Ramirez. “I think I felt like I was old enough to help out with the family. At least by taking care of my personal bills, was a big help.”

Ramirez would get picked up at 5:30 a.m. and ride out 15 miles into the vegetable fields with the working crew of his friend’s uncle. He picked bell peppers all day, rode back to town, showered, then resumed training at the boxing gym.

“By 6 in the morning, we were getting started, from 6 to 4 p.m.,” recalled Ramirez. “That’s pretty much how I spent my summers. At 4:40 p.m., I would go to the boxing gym.”

The work was exhausting, but it became second nature to Ramirez. Compared to working all day in the fields, a boxing gym must have seemed like a vacation to the young Ramirez. Despite all the effort in the gym, Ramirez credits much of his success to his farming roots.

"Working in those fields builds a lot of self-discipline. It made me appreciate a lot of those people, my co-workers at the time. A lot of those people that migrate to the United States and work hard. It made me appreciate my father and everything he has done and overcame. It made me respect my last name. It made me respect the small communities. It made me respect the immigrants in the United States a lot more. It built so much character in me. That’s why now, as a professional, I continue to do what I do. I continue to treat them as my family."

Ramirez carried those lessons into the ring and embodies them in his daily life. He’s as passionate about boxing as he is about the farming industry that taught him so much and provided a living for his family. While he’s pummeling opponents in the ring, his hometown and family are never far from his thoughts.

“I got myself into the sport of boxing because I fell in love with the sport, and now as a professional, it has given me the opportunity to give a lot of privileges to my family that we never got to live before,” said Ramirez.

He added, “I still visit them [workers] at the farms once in a while when I get the chance and motivate them and remind them how important they are to the country and the world.”

Ramirez is highly invested in improving the working conditions of farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley. He donated portions of his purses to aid farmers in their struggle to ease water restrictions in a series of fights that were billed as “The Fight for Water.”

Ramirez continues to act on behalf of central California farmers, but the relationship is reciprocal. They offer him something too.

“I go back [to Avenal] and drive to be reminded myself and get motivation off of them at the same time,” said Ramirez.

When Ramirez returns to the ring for the first time in over a year on Aug. 29, he’ll be empowered by all of the people he’s fighting for. Material objects mean little to Ramirez. Higher powers drive him.

“I just want to make sure I continue to be a good son, a good friend, a good father,” stated Ramirez. “For me, it goes God, family, and then the sport of boxing, in that order.”

Jose Ramirez defends his WBC and WBO junior welterweight titles against Viktor Postol on Saturday, Aug. 29, on ESPN+ at 7:30 p.m. ET.