Maurice Hooker took the first L of his pro career on Saturday night, dropping the WBO junior welterweight title in an action-packed main event on DAZN, as Jose Ramirez stopped Hooker in the sixth round to unify that belt with the WBC title.
Hooker (26-1-3, 17 KO) reportedly had no problems with the referee stopping the fight when he did. Like everyone in or around the boxing world — but obviously especially the fighters taking the risks — recent tragedies are obviously still on his mind.
Top Rank’s Crystina Poncher tweeted this after the fight:
Mo came to Jose’s locker room to say congrats and give his respect. Mo said the ref did the right thing. Said “two fighters died this week and I didn’t want to be the third...the ref did the right thing because I was hurt.” Wow @trboxing
— Crystina Poncher (@CrystinaPoncher) July 28, 2019
The 29-year-old Hooker and the 26-year-old Ramirez (25-0, 17 KO) put on a great show for fans in the arena and at home across the world, and Hooker has nothing to be ashamed of in defeat. Good fighters lose when they fight other good fighters — someone has to, after all, and that’s one of the reasons we should appreciate when fighters on this level actually choose to fight one another, and hopefully we can on a larger scale stop tearing down fighters for losing fights when they actually had the sand to dare risk a loss in the first place.
And it’s good to hear Maurice had no problems with the stoppage, because referee Mark Nelson did a good job. Hooker got cracked with a hook and Ramirez landed, by my count, eight or nine more shots in quick succession, with Hooker’s head bobbing around. He didn’t go down, but he was out of it, and Nelson did an excellent job, giving Hooker a chance to recover without letting it go too far.
Hooker will be back, as he’s still clearly a contender at 140, which is a good division where the best are actually fighting the best at the moment.