By Ryan Burton

Last Saturday night, former three division champion Abner Mares (27-1-1) picked up his second win in a row with a fifth round stoppage of Jose Ramirez at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on the Amir Khan-Devon Alexander televised undercard.  Mares dropped Ramirez three times in what clearly was his best performance since suffering his lone defeat which occurred in August 2013 against Jhonny Gonzalez.

"I thought it was a great performance," Mares stated. "I definitely have to go back and look at the fight. It definitely wasn't a perfect fight. I got hit with punches I shouldn't have got hit with but the fans got what they wanted."

The fight was indeed entertaining and probably the best scrap on the 9 bout fight card.

As for what is next, Mares said that he is open to facing any featherweight in the world and hopes that the thaw in the Cold War will give him opportunities against Top Rank's deep stable of featherweights as well.

"I would like a Leo Santa Cruz fight or a Jhonny Gonzalez rematch. [Vasyl] Lomachenko and [Nicholas] Walters too. I don't know, all of those fights are really interesting and I hope to get any of them. Now that Golden Boy is working with Top Rank there definitely are a lot of fights out there for me," Mares told BoxingScene.com.

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