WBO / WBA cruiserweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (47-1, 30 KOs) hopes to land a mega-fight in 2025 after his highly successful 2024 campaign, in which he added the WBO 200-pound title to his WBA crown. He accomplished that on November 16th with a twelve-round unanimous decision over Chris “The Gentleman” Billam-Smith (20-2, 13 KOs) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.In 2016, Ramirez became the first Mexican boxer to capture a super middleweight world title (WBO) and the Mexican duplicated that feat, albeit in a higher weight class, last March 30th when he took the WBA crown away from Arsen Goulamirian (21-0, 14 KOs), winning ten of twelve rounds on each of the officialk scorecards. Now, he is also the first Mexican to unify the world cruiserweight titles.
Zurdo's 2024 saw him winning two world titles in dominating fashion. He defeated a pair of reigning title holders who entered the ring to fight him sporting a combined 47-1 (32 KOs) record and he won 18 of 24 total rounds. Neither defending champion was ever really in their fight with Ramirez, who used his entire arsenal to stymie Goulamirian, and after blasting Billam-Smith early in their fight, “Zurdo” cruised to victory leaving the tough Brit looking like he had been in a car crash.
“I’m excited to be in this position but the job is not done yet,” Ramirez said. “My goal has always been to leave a legacy in this sport and I’m looking forward to becoming an undisputed champion this year. Many options have been presented to my team and I from Dorticos to Badou Jack and Jai Opetaia. We’ll just have to see what the future holds. Dorticos would be my WBA mandatory, Badou Jack is someone that’s been avoiding me since my super middleweight days, and Jai has a couple of the belts I want. It’s going to be a great 2025.”
Here’s a look at the wish list “Zurdo” has for 2025:
Jai Opetaia (26-0, 20 KOs) – The undefeated IBF cruiserweight champion is scheduled to make a defense this week against David Nyika (10-0, 9 KOs). Assuming the heavy-handed Australian gets past Nyika, “Zurdo” vs. Opetia has all the makings of a classic Boxer vs. Puncher encounter. Clearly this is the most appealing cruiserweight matchup, especially if both fighters’ goal is to be the Undisputed King of the Cruiserweights.
Oleksandr Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) – The gifted Ukrainian is the true world heavyweight champion. Reports have Usyk considering his return to the cruiserweight division, which he dominated from 2016 to 2018 before he moved up to fight as a relatively “small” heavyweight.
David Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) – The WBC interim light heavyweight title holder defends his title February 1st against David Morrell. If the Phoenix native makes a successful title defense, he’s not going to get a shot at the winner of the February 22nd Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol rematch until much later in 2025, if at all. Benavidez is already frustrated from waiting so long for his world light heavyweight title shot against Beterbiev or Bivol. His camp has mentioned the possibility of him moving up to the cruiserweight division, openly targeting “Zurdo.” Benavidez knows “Zurdo” and has trained at Ramirez’ gym, Brickhouse Boxing Club in North Hollywood, California.
Yuniel Dorticos (27-2, 25 KOs) – The WBA’s No. 1 mandatory challenger has fought only once in the past two years, last June in a tune-up fight, but the Cuban former champion could be next if “Zurdo” decides to get his mandatory out of the way prior to fighting any of the aforementioned fighters.
If Ramirez’ immediate goal is to own all four major world cruiserweight crowns, eventually, he’ll need to capture the WBC title that has been held hostage by Noel Miklaelian (27-2, 12 KOs), reportedly due to issues with his promoter, Don King. Miklaelian has been named champion in recess and replaced as the WBC champion by Badou Jack (28-3-3, 17 KOs), who had been the WBC champion In recess.
There’s always Jake Paul (11-1, 7 KOs), the You-Tuber and social media influencer who said after his win over Mike Tyson that he wants to fight for the world cruiserweight title in 2025. Paul represents a potential gold mine for “Zurdo” in a cash grab.
Although “Zurdo” has repeatedly said that his immediate goal is to unify the world cruiserweight titles before moving up to bridgerweight and eventually heavyweight, however, unifying all four titles is an incredibly difficult task because of all the mandatory fights. If that’s the case, though, Ramirez also has the option to challenge WBA bridgerweight champion Muslim Gadzhimagomedov or WBC titlist Kevin Lerena, whether it’s a one-and-done or not.
