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| The main event of ESPN2’s Tuesday Night Fight’s show coming from Kansas City, Missouri featured a twelve round featherweight fight between undefeated contender Marcos Ramirez and Tiger Smalls. After an action-packed co-feature served up between Silverio Ortiz and Daniel Seda, this fight needs |  |
to live up to expectations as a choice for main event billing. Ramirez entered the fight with twenty wins and fifteen knockouts while Tiger Smalls brought a record of seventeen wins, seven losses, one draw and six knockouts. This is how it all went down, punch for punch, round by round.
Round one: Smalls come sout feinting and jabbing. Ramirez flies in with a right-left combination that sends Smalls into the ropes. Ramirez keeps his guard tight and absorbs some combinations work from Smalls. Counter right from Ramirez lands. Smalls backs off to take away some of the impact of a Ramirez left hook. Ramirez for the most part double jabbed through the round without threatening too much behind those shots, while the taller and rangy Smalls offered even less.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Round two: Smalls lands a smart right on Ramirez. Jabs from both men are falling short. Ramirez leads with a powerful right. Ramirez is becoming the aggressor here with solid righta and lefts throwin in single shots. Ramirez tries to penetrate with some body jabbing and rights to the midsection. Smalls takes a left hook and goes off balance but Ramirez waits instead of rushing in. Ramirez is catching the eye here with more punches landed and better overall intent in his work.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Round three: Ramirez opens with tentative jabs. Ramirez has to take a right hand on the way in. Very little effective work is landing from either man in this round. Both fighters look very comfortable as counterpunchers waiting for the other to make a mistake. For the most part, Ramirez is able to capitalize on more of Small’s lunges forward but they are both still full of energy and the moments when they are in close do not last long. Ramirez looks more purposeful at this point.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Round four: Hopefully the action will pick up in this round as Smalls especially has proved to be frustratingly ineffective throughout the first three rounds. Ramirez opens up with several more bursts of punches than has been seen from him thus far. Smalls takes a clubbing left hook on the backfoot. Smalls goes back to trying to catch Ramirez coming in with the right hand. Ramirez attacks to the body which draws a flurry of body shots inside from Smalls. The activity level picked up in this round slightly but it is still a negative performance from Smalls and Ramirez does not appear to have the imagination to open things up.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Round five: Ramirez lands a right to the body. Ramirez is trying for the right hand to the head. Ramirez lands a good body shot. Smalls has to take a right hand. Smalls starts to clown in the ring, perhaps in an attempt to draw Ramirez forward into a mistake. Smalls seems unwilling to make a real fight of it and Ramirez lacks the experience and perhaps even the confidence in his own ability to simply create something.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Round six: Ramirez has to take a quick left hand inside.Ramirez is charging in with shots that are never going to catch the quicker Smalls. Ramirez finally catches Smalls flush with a straight right hand and Ramirez follows up with more aggressive action. Another right from Ramirez sends Smalls backwards. Ramirez gets in with a light left hook to the body. Ramirez is also closer with his jab than before. More rights from Ramirez punctuate a good round for him.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Round seven: Ramirez is much closer with his jab but brings little else behind it. A solid right from Ramirez catches Smalls on the way in. Ramirez is showing much more aggression but is unable to land much significant work on the evasive Smalls. Both fighters work to the body in close but little of any significance lands from either man and it has to be said that this is a hugely disappointing choice of a main event. The selling angle is geared towards hometown fight Ramirez who is delivering little, and Smalls who is supposedly disgruntled at his lack of billing as a champion is offering a poor fight all around.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Round eight: Neither of these fighters is about to take any chances. Tiger Smalls seems to have taken a page from the Bernard Hopkins guide to fighting in that he has done virtually nothing for the majority of these eight rounds. Hopefully, Smalls will follow Hopkins’ example against Jermain Taylor and come alive at least in the last few rounds of the fight.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Round nine: Ramirez seems to have decided that it is a good idea to take his jab off target at this point. Smalls lands a good left hand, and it must be the only truly significant punch he has landed throughout the entire fight to this point. Ramirez jabs well. Smalls jabs and gets caught by a left hand. Smalls slips in a counter right to Ramirez. It is almost impossible to give Smalls anything, even considering the fact that overall, Ramirez’ workrate is nothing special in this fight.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Round ten: Smalls reels away from half-hearted jabs from Ramirez. SMalls takes the steam off a right hand from Ramirez as he retreats once again. Ramirez backs Smalls up but takes a counter right for his troubles. Smalls lands another right hand. Smalls whacks Ramirez with a right then a left. A rare action round from Smalls that he wins on my scorecard.
Score: Smalls 10-9.
Round eleven: Smalls actually stands and delivers a 1-2-3 combination in the centre of the ring, and it is a shame when all of those shots miss their targets. Ramirez crashes home a right hand that sends Smalls back into the ropes but he is not hurt. Smalls lands a few quick head shots that do not seem to trouble Ramirez. There is so much innacurate punching from both men in this round.
Score: Smalls 10-9.
Round twelve: Ramirez lands a right hand , then another and looks intent to close the show well. Ramirez has stuck to his task well enough but Smalls has never really tried to make a fight of it here. The referee gets an inadvertent clip from Smalls in trying to break them up, it’s a shame that this is the most significant action in the round thus far. Ramirez backs Smalls up with a few neat left-right combinations and Smalls fires back to the body. Ramirez batters Smalls with some decent head shots before having to take a right hand himself.
Score: Ramirez 10-9.
Official Scores: 116-113, 119-109 and 116-112 all in favor of the winner and NEW NABO featherweight champion, Marcos Ramirez!
Contact Jim Cawkwell at jimcawkwell@yahoo.co.uk
