Undefeated super flyweight contender John “Scrappy” Ramirez (11-0, 8 KOs) defeated a badly overmatched Luis Padilla (15-3-2, 2 KOs) by a one-sided 10 round unanimous decision to win the WBA Continental America 115-lb belt on Thursday night on DAZN at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, in Indio, California.
The 26-year-old ‘Scrappy’ Ramirez was heavily booed by the crowd, who didn’t seem to like his showboating and the one-sided next of the contest. Toward the end of the fight, the crowd was shouting “Mexico” in support of the Mexico native, 22-year-old Padilla, who was getting hit at will by the 5’4″ ‘Scrappy’ Ramirez.
The scores:
The Golden Boy promoted ‘Scrappy’ Ramirez had Padilla hurt on several occasions with uppercuts, which were the best punches he had in his arsenal tonight. However, ‘Scrappy’ couldn’t close the show for lack of finishing power. Padilla was able to take the shots and return fire even when hurt.
There wasn’t any let up by ‘Scrappy’ in the second half of the fight, as he showed no signs of fatigue. He stayed in attack mode, mixing up his punches well. The uppercuts from Ramirez were beautifully thrown, but Padilla took them well and didn’t seem phased for some reason.
Padilla could have been a real problem for Scrappy tonight if he had even a tiny bit more power because he was landing shots, but he didn’t have enough on them to do any damage. That’s obviously why Padilla was chosen.
If he had power, Golden Boy Promotions likely wouldn’t have made the fight because Scrappy is too green to fight guys that can punch right now. It’s not a good idea of they put Scrappy in with WBA 115-lb champion Joshua Franco right now because he’s not ready.
If you were to point to areas where ‘Scrappy’ Ramirez needs improvement, you’d have to point to his lack of power and his poor defense.
Ramirez doesn’t possess the kind of power that will give him a chance against WBA super flyweight champion Joshua Franco, Juan Franco Estrada, Junto Nakatani, or Fernando Martinez. Scrappy isn’t ready for those types of fighters, and it’s unclear how long it’s going to take before he is ready.
All in all, it was a decent performance from ‘Scrappy’ Ramirez. With that said, it’s unclear why the WBA has him ranked #2 at 115. Ramirez hasn’t beaten anyone notable during his three-year professional career, and it’s not fair to the contenders for him to be ranked so high at this early juncture of his career without fighting anybody of note.
In the chief support bout, undefeated super bantamweight Manny Flores (15-0, 11 KOs) defeated Franklin Gonzalez (25-2, 25 KOs) by an eight round split decision in a fight that was very difficult for him.
Flores got hit a lot by everything Gonzalez threw, but he took the shots and came on in the fifth to drop him. The judges’ scores were 77-74, 77-74 for Flores, and 76-75 for Gonzalez.
This was a much better fight than the main event between Scrappy Ramirez and Padilla.
