Former WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez declared himself ready to face Marcus Browne for the interim-WBC title in the light heavyweight division.
The head of the WBC, Mauricio Sulaimán, mentioned that this fight was ordered due to the inactivity of current champion Artur Beterbiev, who has had problems defending his belt. Beterbiev has had to deal with postponements, injuries and more recently a diagnosis of COVID-19.
Beterbiev has been out of the ring since the fall of 2019, when he unified the WBC/IBF title with a stoppage win over Oleksandr Gvozdyk.
Sulaiman pointed out that at this time the fight between Ramirez and Browne is in a period of free negotiations, with a deadline of February 5, and if an agreement is not reached it will go to a purse bid.
Ramirez was very enthusiastic about this fight, as he remembered when the late Don José Sulaimán saw Gilberto fight, when he was just a child, and years later he was crowned the youth champion of the WBC.
"It's a dream come true," Ramirez said to Hector Lopez. “I feel very excited and motivated, I have always felt part of the WBC and I owe that to Don José, who always treated me with special affection and who since he met me told me that I would be world champion [of the WBC].
"And now today, I have that great opportunity and I assure you that I am not going to let [the opportunity] go, because I owe it to him, to my people and to myself."
Ramirez is technically a free agent and self-promoting himself through his own company, Zurdo Promotions.
He would like to secure the rights to the fight with Browne and stage the fight in Mazatlan.
