By Ryan Burton
Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez (39-0) capped off a successful 2018 with a majority decision victory over Jesse Hart (25-2) in a rematch of their 2017 fight. Ramirez won by scores of 115-113 twice and 114-114. For the year Ramirez went 3-0 with 1 knockout.
In the 8th round of the fight Ramirez suffered an injury to his left elbow and the southpaw wasn't able to use it much throughout the rest of the fight. When he did decide to use it, he was in noticeable pain and there wasn't much power behind it.
Ramirez went to get his elbow checked out in Los Angeles earlier this week and his trainer Hector Zapari said that they received good news from the doctor.
"Everything is okay thanks to God. It was just a contusion. The doctor said that he needs to rest it for three to four weeks and use a lot of ice on it," Zapari told BoxingScene.com. "We thought he might have a tear but thankfully that didn't happen."
As for the fight itself, Zapari thought it was a good fight until the 8th round when he felt a desperate Hart resorted to questionable tactics to try to turn the fight around.
"It was a good fight. It was very interesting until Hart started to hold and hug a lot. He felt all of the body punches and he was losing his legs and that is when he started trying to tie up Zurdo and make it a dirty fight," Zapari explained.
After the fight Ramirez said that he planned on moving to 175 pounds and that he would target newly crowned WBC champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk. His trainer clarified that they are willing to stay at 168 but only for a major fight.
"If Bob Arum doesn't give us a big fight that motivates Gilberto then we are going to move to 175 and go directly to a fight against Gvozdyk or the Alvarez-Kovalev winner," Zapari stated.
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