Will the WBO Overlook Gilberto Ramirez Again?

By: Shane Willoughby 

Gilberto Ramirez has been at 175lbs for about a year but still hasn’t been allowed to fulfil his mandatory obligations for the WBO title.

Ramirez was the WBO champion at 168 but relinquished the belt to move up to Light heavyweight. One of the rules the WBO inforce is that any of their champions will become mandatory if they decide to move to another weight class.

With that said, how is it that Ramirez still hasn’t been able to fight for the title. When Kovalev was WBO champion he had a mandatory in place prior to the Mexican making the jump. 

However, after Kovalev got past Anthony Yarde, Ramirez was forced to wait again due to the WBO ranking Canelo Alvarez ahead of him, despite the fact that Alvarez has never been a champion with the governing body and had never fought at 175lbs.

Now the belt is free after Saul Alvarez vacated the strap, it looks as if Ramirez is getting overlooked once again. Many names have been thrown in the hat to fight for the vacant title; but not Gilberto Ramirez.
Joe Smith Jr, Dmitry Bivol, Anthony Yarde, Sergey Kovalev have all been rumoured to fight for the belt ahead of the former champion. Now that the belt is vacant it’s a perfect opportunity to unify the strap with one of the titles.

So Bivol vs Ramirez or even Beterbiev vs Ramirez would be fantastic but extremely unlikely. It doesn’t really matter who Ramirez opponent is so long as he gets his opportunity to fight for the belt, and the WBO stick to the rules that they have set.
There have been several rumours stating Ramirez could be looking to buy out his contract with Top Rank, could that be the reason why he hasn’t had his shot? We all know uncle Bob has a good relationship with the WBO. Or could he be wanting to leave because Top Rank haven’t delivered his title shot?

There are many rumours circulating but maybe the Dmitry Bivol and Gilberto Ramirez fight is more likely than we think. Because if the rumours are true that the Mexican wants to leave Top Rank it’s likely he will join DAZN.

With the large number of Mexican subscribers they have generated through the likes of Canelo and now Mickey Garcia, It seems like a perfect home for Ramirez and the fact that Bivol is also with DAZN it may make it more appealing for Ramirez.