Coming off of the best win of his pro career to date, unified 140-pound titleholder Jose Ramirez looks like he’ll be making a mandatory WBC title defense against former titleholder Viktor Postol the next time we see him.
Ramirez (25-0, 17 KO) was last seen on July 27, traveling to Texas to stop Maurice Hooker in the sixth round of a terrific fight, with Ramirez adding the WBO title to the WBC belt that he won in March 2018.
The 27-year-old Ramirez now firmly stands as one of the best 140-pound fighters in the world — with two belts, he can make his claim to being the top dog — and at the moment, he has two mandatories coming due. One would be with Jack Catterall, the WBO mandatory, and the other with Postol.
The WBO did order the Ramirez-Catterall fight on July 8, as Ramirez and Hooker had agreed that the winner of their fight must face Catterall within 120 days. But Ramirez is promoted by Top Rank and Catterall by Frank Warren, and those two sides have a good working relationship that would, in theory, allow them to come to an agreement to push Catterall’s shot back a bit in order to placate the WBC situation with Postol.
Postol (31-2, 12 KO) upset Lucas Matthysse to win the WBC title about four years ago, but was then soundly defeated by Terence Crawford in a unification nine months later. He’s won two straight following a June 2018 loss to Josh Taylor, including the April 27 win over Mohamed Mimoune that made him the WBC mandatory once again.
At 35, Postol is getting up there and probably doesn’t have the tools to beat Ramirez, but he’s a credible challenger and it’s not a bad fight. With the division’s two other top names, Regis Prograis and the aforementioned Taylor, tied up with one another, Postol is probably about as good as Ramirez is going to do.
Right now the fight is being targeted for Nov. 30 at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles.