By Keith Idec
Jose Ramirez can draw crowds.
That’s indisputable after an announced crowd of 13,700 attended a card Friday night at Fresno State University’s Save Mart Center headlined by Ramirez’s sixth-round stoppage of Issouf Kinda. It’s the second time more than 13,000 fans from central California have flocked there to watch the 2012 American Olympian fight.
Ramirez hopes his promoter, Top Rank Inc., and HBO can show off what Ramirez and the unbeaten junior welterweight’s handlers have to done to establish a huge fan base early in 2017.
“My goal is to become a world champion and then bring HBO and bring all the big fighters to the Save Mart Center, here in Fresno,” Ramirez told BoxingScene.com. “Because I know we’re gonna sell tickets. I know we’re gonna have an atmosphere that would be great in this type of arena.”
“Fight For Water,” the cause near and dear to Ramirez’s heart, has helped develop his huge following. Drawing attention to California’s water crisis has turned a lot of paying customers into boxing fans, now that they’ve had the opportunity to watch the sport live for reasonably priced tickets.
The 24-year-old Ramirez (19-0, 14 KOs), who’s trained by Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, is realistic about his plan. He’s more than willing to fight in an HBO co-feature and have Top Rank showcase one of its more established boxers in the main event.
Ramirez watched Ukraine’s Vasyl Lomachenko (7-1, 5 KOs) beat Jamaica’s Nicholas Walters (26-1-1, 21 KOs) a week ago in a Las Vegas ballroom barely capable of accommodating 2,000 fans. The Avenal, California, native wondered what it would be like if a fight like Lomachenko-Walters headlined an HBO doubleheader at Save Mart Center.
“When the fight was over between Lomachenko and Walters,” Ramirez said, “Max Kellerman said, ‘This fight could’ve been more impressive if it would’ve been in a bigger arena, with much bigger hype and a much better atmosphere, to push both boxers to give the fans a better fight.’ Those type of guys who are fighting in The Cosmopolitan … bringing them to Fresno as the main event, and just make me the co-main event, I know the tickets will still sell. The whole place will sell and it will be a much bigger opportunity for the fighters, and for HBO, to also, you know, to put on big fights like that, with a sold-out crowd of 15,000 people.
“Those are the opportunities that we’re also working with Top Rank to get, to see if they can bring a fighter to the Valley, to kind of give us that opportunity to bring a big network to the Valley. And even if I’m not the main event, the tickets will still sell and I could fight a known fighter in a title eliminator at the beginning of next year. It could be a win-win for everybody. Those are amazing fighters, with so much talent and so much potential, but they have nowhere really to sell tickets and bring big crowds because their fan base is pretty much all over the United States and international, obviously, because they come from all over the world. Stuff like that is what I’m looking forward to bringing here to the Valley.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
