The winner of the four-belt junior welterweight unification bout between Josh ‘The Tartan Tornado’ Taylor 17-0 (13) and Jose ‘Jaguar’ Ramirez 26-0 (17) will be offered the opportunity to move up in weight to face WBO welterweight champion Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford 37-0 (28), according to Bob Arum.
The winner of the fight between WBA and IBF boss Taylor and WBC and WBO kingpin Ramirez will take place at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday night.
Southpaw Crawford, 33, has struggled to find viable opposition since moving up to the 147-pound weight class three years ago, where he has faced Jeff Horn, Jose Benavidez Jr, Amir Khan, Egidijus Kavaliauskas and Kell Brook, stopping all five.
The winner of the Taylor-Ramirez fight will need to honour a fight against WBO mandatory challenger Jack ‘El Gato’ Catterall 26-0 (13) or vacate the belt.
“The winner of this fight has agreed to give [undefeated WBO super lightweight mandatory Catterall a shot. Hopefully things clear up in the UK and we can do the fight over there. But we’ll see,” Top Rank boss Arum, who promotes Taylor, Ramirez and Crawford, told Boxing Social.
“Certainly I have Terence Crawford available to fight the winner of Taylor vs Ramirez. That would be a tremendous fight. he was going to fight [Manny] Pacquiao in Abu Dhabi, but that didn’t come off, So we’re looking around for a big fight for him with spectators sometime in the fall of this year.”
Earlier this week Scottish southpaw Taylor, 30, said he was in no rush to move up in weight.
“I am not going to be short of options for big fights,” he said to the PA news agency. “I’m still making the weight comfortably, I’m not going to be in a rush to jump to 147lbs so we’ll just see what options come after the fight and what comes my way.
“Everyone is on the radar and if they’re wanting to have a fight and everything’s right for me as well then yeah, why not? I’ll fight absolutely anybody. Literally, I’d fight my own shadow, I’m not scared to fight anybody.”
Last year Crawford revealed his parred-back gameplan for a Ramirez if they ever fought: “Crush him, it’s that simple. Whenever he’s ready, I’m going to crush him.”
Ramirez answered at the time that he was comfortable at his current weight.
“Right now I am a super lightweight but when I decide to make that move to the welterweight division people need to stop and really think that I am going to be putting on extra weight and I am going to be much stronger,” Ramirez said.
“You are definitely going to see a much bigger and stronger Jose Ramirez. Don’t compare me and Crawford as the fighter I am right now. Just wait and compare me when I make that move to see how much stronger I get.
“From there then you can make more valid points. For now I am looking forward to making that move and facing a guy like Crawford.”
