Jesus Ramos Jnr fulfilling 'Grande' plans out of humble origins

LAS VEGAS – There’s something about coming from nothing, residing in a town where accomplishment outside the town’s boundaries is rare.

Jesus Ramos Jnr feels it.

He was raised in the Sonoran Desert town of Casa Grande, Arizona (population 55,635), a plot between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, that averages more than 100 degrees a day from May through October and counts Wal-Mart, Frito-Lay and the U.S. Customs department among the top-10 employers for workers whose average income is $64,535.

Ramos, 23, and his uncle Abel, who recently fought Mario Barrios Jnr to a draw in a WBC welterweight title fight, started so humbly, going for conditioning runs on scorching desert ground, training in their sweatbox garage.

“There’s a lot of pride, because we’ve never seen anyone like a professional athlete to look up to,” Ramos said. “By being here now, I want to inspire the next generation, with my uncle and I leading the way, to teach everyone there’s more out there in the world, that as long as you believe in yourself, anything is possible.”

A junior middleweight ranked in the top 10 by all four sanctioning bodies (WBC No. 6, WBA No. 7, IBF No. 8 and WBO No. 10), Ramos, 21-1 (17 KOs), will return to the ring Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in the pay-per-view opener versus former unified junior middleweight titleholder Jeison Rosario, 24-4-2 (18 KOs), in a middleweight bout.

Following a 2023 loss to former title challenger and current IBF contender Erickson Lubin, Ramos assessed the landscape of the loaded 154lbs division as a game of musical chairs, with the likes of titleholders Sebastian Fundora, Terence Crawford, Bakhram Murtazaliev and contenders Vergil Ortiz Jnr, Israil Madrimov and Serhii Bohachuk either locked up in or anticipating fights.

So he agreed to take on the former belt holder Rosario at Rosario’s preferred weight.

““I’m hoping it’ll get me one of the big guys. … We don’t want to be stagnant. I want to stay active,” Ramos said.

The Ramos family carries the momentum of what it’s building in Casa Grande to another bout after Ramos’ uncle, Abel Ramos, 33, rallied from a second-round knockdown to Barrios on the undercard of Jake Paul-Mike Tyson in Texas in November, and claimed the draw.

After Barrios’ push for a showdown with Conor Benn didn’t materialize, the hope is for Barrios-Ramos II while nephew Jesus chases his title dreams.

“In a way, it was a victory because everyone was kind of writing off my uncle [Abel] – Barrios thought it’d be an easy fight – and it seemed that way when he dropped my uncle in the first two rounds,” Jesus Ramos Jnr said.

“But my uncle’s got a lot of heart. That was just the beginning of war. That lit a fire under my uncle, and he went after him and showed he’s meant to be up there. I’m excited about what he’s done.”

Cracking that “the desert is my backyard,” Jesus Ramos Jnr has retreated to Casa Grande in these milder months leading up to Saturday’s bout.

The family has upgraded from the garage, constructing a gym equipped with air conditioning, sparring partners, a strength and conditioning coach, a sauna and a cold plunge. But Jesus Ramos Jnr says he still takes to primitive methods by occasionally shutting himself in a storage room of the gym void of AC for intense workouts June through August.

“You see someone who [originally] knows nothing, and your first thought is, ‘He’s not going to make it, he’s coming out of a garage,’” Ramos said. “So it’s something I’m proud of.”

Ramos said his goal is to parlay a victory over Rosario to a better position behind Premier Boxing Champions banner mate and unified WBC and WBO titleholder Fundora.

To prepare, he’ll surely return to Casa Grande.

“Little by little, we’re making it how we want it – this is our home,” Ramos said.

Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.