Right Then, The Bad News First
Right then. Jesus Ramos Jr was supposed to be making the first defence of his interim WBC middleweight title tonight at Pechanga Arena. He is not, because on Thursday evening he fell ill and was taken to a hospital in the San Diego area.
PBC confirmed he was evaluated, treated and released on Friday morning. The fight against Meiirim Nursultanov is off and will be rescheduled for a later date.
First things first, and this matters more than any card reshuffle: the lad is out of hospital and he is alright. Everything else is secondary to that. Nobody who has watched enough boxing needs reminding what happens when a fighter with something wrong with him gets waved into a ring anyway.
The Right Call, Made Properly
Make no mistake, this is the system working. A fighter got ill, the fight got pulled, nobody tried to patch him up and sell tickets on him.
We have all seen the other version. A camp that leans on a fighter because the date is locked and the broadcast is sold. A man who cuts weight on top of something already wrong with him. It goes badly far more often than the sport likes to admit, and the fact that this one got stopped at the weigh-in rather than in the twelfth round is the whole point.
Ramos is 24 and he has plenty of time. A cancelled September is nothing. A twelve-round fight with something wrong with you can be everything.
Spare A Thought For Nursultanov
Here is the bit nobody writes up. Nursultanov is 20-0 with eleven knockouts. He has done the camp. He has done the weight. He has flown to California. He has paid trainers and sparring partners for eight weeks of work and he has turned up on the scales ready to fight for an interim world title, and he has been sent home.
That is not a minor inconvenience for a fighter at his level. That is a year's planning gone, and the rescheduled date is currently a sentence in a press release rather than anything you could put in a diary.
My honest concern is the word "later". Later has a habit of becoming never in this sport. If the WBC have any sense they put a deadline on it and mean it.
What The Card Looks Like Now
Credit where it is due, PBC have not just shrugged and shipped a four-fight show. They have rebuilt it on a Friday.
Daniel Blancas, 15-0 out of Milwaukee, now takes on Mexico's Sergio Jimenez, 17-1-1, at 168 as the new co-feature. Jimenez has fifteen knockouts in eighteen fights. Blancas has never been beaten. That is a proper fight to walk into at short notice and it might turn out to be a lot more fun than the one it replaced.
They have also pulled Eumir Marcial against Omar Huerta up from the non-televised undercard onto the main DAZN broadcast, and Marco Verde against Guillermo Hernandez survives as another unbeaten-versus-unbeaten. Two Olympians on one card is not a bad recovery from a Thursday night phone call.
And The Main Event Is Untouched
Isaac Cruz came in at 139 lbs. Nestor Bravo came in at 139.2 lbs. The interim WBC super lightweight title fight is exactly where it was, and we have already given you our read on that one.
Cruz has not boxed since a draw last December and has held that interim belt for fourteen months without sharing a ring with the champion. He needs a performance tonight, not just a win.
Luke's Verdict
The cancellation is correct and I have no criticism of anyone involved in making it. Health first, always, and PBC deserve credit for rebuilding the card properly instead of thinning it out.
But I want a date for Nursultanov, and I want it in writing. He is the one who has lost something real here and he has no way of getting it back on his own.
My call for the fight when it does happen: Nursultanov beats Ramos. Take the points now. Ramos is the bigger name and the harder puncher, but Nursultanov is the more disciplined fighter over twelve rounds and I think he outworks him in the second half. The delay only helps him — he gets to watch Ramos fight somebody else first.
Full card coverage on the news page, and every confirmed date is on the fight schedule.