Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
Jose Ramirez is the WBO and WBC unified 140 lbs champion after this stunning finish of Maurice Hooker.
While UFC 240 was going on, the most important and most competitive major fight of the weekend happened in the boxing ring. Jose Ramirez (25-0, 17 KOs) entered Saturday night as the WBC junior welterweight champion, while Maurice Hooker (24-1-3, 16 KOs) was the WBO champion.
In a rare moment of sanity, Top Rank and Matchroom Boxing got together to make this fight happen, network contracts be damned. The DAZN streamed bout was 50-50 on paper and proved to be one of boxing’s best matches of 2019. In front of a raucous crowd in Hooker’s hometown of Dallas, Texas, Ramirez and Hooker waged war on each other just about from the opening bell. Ramirez “dropped” Hooker in the first round, but Ramirez obviously stepped on Hooker’s foot and it should’ve never counted.
Ramirez turned the fight in his favor for good late in round six, stunning Hooker with a left hook. What soon followed was a masterclass in finishing a hurt opponent, as he fired off somewhere in the neighborhood of eight consecutive landed punches against the ropes to get the standing TKO. If Hooker had gone down, there was almost no way he would’ve gotten up.
Watch the finish below:
.@RamirezBoxing finishes the action-packed fight with a round 6 TKO! #HookerRamirez pic.twitter.com/g2VSYysSLZ
— DAZN USA (@DAZN_USA) July 28, 2019
Scorecards read 49-45 Ramirez, 48-46 Ramirez, and 47-47 at the time of the stoppage. Top Rank Boxing now has two of the four major belts at 140 lbs, with Regis Prograis vs. Josh Taylor set to unify the WBA and IBF titles in October. It’s very possible we see an undisputed title fight in 2020 when all is said and done.
This was a tremendous showdown of best vs. best and this is no doubt the best win of Ramirez’s career.