Unbeaten rising star Jesus Ramos Jr. delivered an impressive unanimous decision win over super welterweight contender Brian Mendoza in the FOX PBC Fight Night main event Sunday night from The Armory in Minneapolis.
"I felt strong in there,” said Ramos (17-0, 14 KOs). “I have to go back and look at the tape and see what I did wrong, but I fought with a lot of energy. He caught me with some good punches early on, so I knew I was going to have to take my time with him.”
The upset-minded Mendoza (19-2, 13 KOs) had some success in the early rounds, using consistent movement to frustrate the 20-year-old Ramos and make him miss again and again. In round four, the southpaw Ramos began to change the tide of the fight and find a home for his dangerous left hand that he would rely on throughout the tilt.
"I started breaking him down and I started going to the body and touching him a lot more,” said Ramos. “He was a strong dude with a good team behind him. I knew he was going to come prepared and I liked the competitiveness he brought.”
Ramos kept his momentum going in the fifth-round, landing 19 punches, quickly doubling his output from any previous round. As the bout wore on and Mendoza wore down, Ramos continued to up his attack, landing 63 bruising power-punches in one-sided eighth and ninth rounds, according to CompuBox.
"He started to break a lot more as the fight went on,” said Ramos. “I was coming on really strong. I thought I might have been able to stop him in some of those later rounds, but he was motivated to go the distance.”
In his first fight at super welterweight, Ramos finished out the victory with a poised performance in round 10 to clinch the decision over Mendoza, with all three judges seeing the bout 98-92. Ramos’ strong finish ended with the Arizona-native owning a 141 to 53 edge in punches landed.
"Hopefully I'll be able to get back in the ring once more this year and finish out strong,” said Ramos. “I'll talk to my team and we'll go from there."