Let's pray that is the end of Rico Ramos as a main event fighter on any television program: Oscar Gonzalez dropped and outworked Ramos on ESPN2's Friday Night Fights. Ramos, once so eager to make an impression back when he made his TV debut on Versus is now only interested in avoiding all contact. It cost him in a unanimous decision loss to Gonzalez, another factor being that he's moved up to featherweight, where he doesn't have the power to bail himself out. That power helped him beat a legit top-10 122-pounder, Akifumi Shimoda, back in 2011, which seems like a career ago. The 25-year-old is now a mere stepping stone, and an exceedingly boring one.
Ramos started reasonably well, winning most of the early rounds with his speed, movement and scoring blows. In the 6th, Gonzalez went downstairs with a left hook that dropped Ramos and almost ended the bout, along with a second left hook to the head as Ramos went down. From there, Ramos hardly won a round. He fought like he was trying to survive. He lost a unanimous decision, 98-91, 96-93 and 97-93. There was a time — including the Shimoda fight — where the occasional Ramos bout entertained in spurts. That time is over. Ramos is one of the most boring and reluctant professional fighters of today, if not THE most. Gonzalez got himself a nice scalp. but if you're scouting Guillermo Rigondeaux-Nonito Donaire Saturday, you have to discount Rigo's win over Ramos even more now.
On the undercard, lightweight Ray Lampkin rebounded from a 2nd round knockdown to score a 3rd round body-shot stoppage of Landon Horseman in a nice scrap, and junior middleweight prospect Oscar Molina made easy 1st round TKO work of Dary Gardner, who literally came into the ring wearing borrowed blood-stained trunks. Those trunks were the best/worst of Friday Night Fights.
