Jose Ramirez escapes disaster against Viktor Postol with decision win

Jose Ramirez had a harder time than expected against Viktor Postol in their junior welterweight clash, but he retained his titles.

Many assumed WBC and WBO junior welterweight champion Jose Ramirez would make easy work of Viktor Postol in their Saturday, Aug. 29, contest.

It wasn’t so easy, after all.

Surprisingly, Postol controlled the action in the first five rounds. People forget that Postol was the former WBC champion before losing to Terence Crawford in 2016. His only other loss came against Josh Taylor in 2018, who possesses the other half of the junior welterweight titles.

Postol (31-3, 12 KOs) won the early rounds against Ramirez by dancing on his toes on the outside and keeping the aggressive Ramirez at bay by using his long jab. Ramirez couldn’t get inside of Postol’s reach, and frustration ensued.

Ramirez (26-0, 17 KOs) looked out of sorts, but Postol’s energy level dropped off in round 6. Ramirez invested punches to Postol’s body, and the tide turned.

Round 7 was Ramirez’s best of the fight. He cut off the ring and landed a huge left hook to Postol’s head that buckled his legs. Ramirez came back with another devastating left to Postol’s body. Postol was on his way out but survived the round.

Viktor Postol over-achieved against Jose Ramirez but didn’t do enough to sway all the judges.

Ramirez controlled round 8 but lost his momentum a bit in round 9. Postol found his legs again and used his jab to confuse Ramirez.

Many of the remaining rounds were hard to score. Postol boxed well, but Ramirez did break down the distance at times and landed the harder punches. It was a much closer fight than expected and could have gone either way.

The judges’ scorecards accurately depicted how close this fight was. One score had it even at 114-114. The others had 115-113 and116-112 both for Ramirez. The score of 115-113 is more accurate in a contest that could have swung in either boxers’ favor.

During the post-fight interview, Ramirez acknowledged his shortcomings.

“I went in there a little too cold,” said Ramirez. “I didn’t press myself.

“I felt like I was in a sparring session.”

Ramirez isn’t going to be happy when he watches this one over, but at least he’s still undefeated. His multiple training camps due to fight postponements didn’t help. Postol advanced his prospects with his performance and will likely land a notable bout next.