By Brent Matteo Alderson
Boxing trainer Henry Ramirez informed BoxingScene.com that Josesito Lopez (23-3, 14KOs) has been offered a fight with 2000 Olympic Silver medalist Ricardo Williams Jr. on a Show-Box card tentatively scheduled to take place in late January. Ramirez notified BoxingScene.com that “they offered us the fight at 141 pounds and we agreed to it.”
Josesito recently came back from a seven month layoff to score a knockout on the Paul Williams-Verno Phillips undercard on November 29. In his previous fight he lost a close majority decision to Edgar Santana on a ShoBox card where the 24-year old Southern California native had Santana down late in the fight.
Williams (13-2, 7KOs) has won three straight since being released from incarceration and seems to be committed to resurrecting his career, but has always had trouble making the Junior-Welterweight limit of 140 pounds and has not fought below 144 pounds since 2002. In fact there were numerous times early in his career when his promoter, Lou DiBella, had to increase the compensation of various opponents because Ricardo did not make the contractual weight. As a result of this history, a number of insiders are skeptical about Ricardo’s ability to make 141 pounds.
Ricardo Williams Jr. is still an intriguing figure in the sport because he’s one of those guys that had all of the talent in the world, but lacked the dedication and discipline necessary to reach the world championship level. As a 19 year old, he was given a million dollar-plus signing bonus and fought his first professional fight on HBO, but couldn’t handle the responsibility associated with being a world class fighter and was upset in a couple of fights that probably would have ended differently if he had the dedication of a Mickey Ward or a Floyd Mayweather. Then like a lot of other young men, when his boxing career unraveled (Kid Akeem), he gravitated towards the streets and was convicted of a drug related crime. Unlike a lot of other fighters with legal problems (Tony Ayala), Williams is only 27 years and still has the opportunity to correct everything that went wrong and not too many people in this world are afforded that opportunity.
As a result this fight is truly a crossroads match-up between two talented fighters and epitomizes the type of match-making that has made ShoBox so successful, with winner albeit guaranteed a top ten ranking and another televised fight.
Notes:
Jackie Kallen was known as Boxing’s first lady, but that was in the nineties when she had Bronco McKart and James Toney. Today numerous members of the boxing fraternity would bestow that honor on publicist Marylin Aceves. She is genuinely a nice person that is a tireless worker and treats everybody with respect and always goes out of her way to accommodate the needs of the press.
Kahren Harutyunyan’s Art of Boxing Promotions has an excellent card coming up this Saturday at the Hollywood Park Casino. It features Roman Karmazin and lots of local talent. If you’re in Southern California, call (818) 749-1571 for tickets.
Brent Matteo Alderson, a graduate of UCLA, has been part of the staff at BoxingScene.com since 2004. Alderson's published work has appeared in publications such as Ring Magazine, KO, World Boxing, Boxing 2008, and Latin Boxing Magazine. Alderson has also been featured on the ESPN Classic television program “Who’s Number One?” Please e-mail any comments to BoxingAficionado@aol.com
