A season of thrilling rematches begins on Sky Sports this weekend with the Rafael Espinoza vs Robeisy Ramirez and Emanuel Navarrete vs Oscar Valdez double-header.
Later this month Tyson Fury will fight Oleksandr Usyk a second time for the unified world heavyweight championship.
Ramirez will be in the first of these world championship rematches when he boxes Mexico’s Rafael Espinoza for the WBO featherweight world title the Cuban used to hold.
A year ago unheralded Espinoza upset Ramirez in one of the best fights of 2023, and the Cuban believes it will be just as intense a contest second time around.
“You can expect a war,” Ramirez told Sky Sports. “We all know how Mexican fighters are. They never give up.
“The reality is it wasn’t the best version of me and I was still able to give a great show and so the second fight will be better.”
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Highlights of Rafael Espinoza’s stunning upset win over Robeisy Ramirez as he clinches the WBO Featherweight Title.
It won’t be the first time Ramirez has had to regroup from a damaging defeat. The two-time Olympic gold medallist lost his professional debut to Adan Gonzales, in a huge upset, but had his revenge when he won their rematch a year later.
He wants to repeat that form this weekend.
“I try not to go in there with anger towards the fighter. I go in there focused on my job. I always characterise myself for getting up after falling down,” he said. “I will be a champion again.
“I will go back to the place where I should be.”
In the first fight Ramirez dropped Espinoza in the fifth round, only to be knocked down himself in the last round as Espinoza took a majority decision.
“I recognise that he did come to win. But I didn’t see myself lose. In the last round he didn’t land a punch that put me in a bad position. I went down, if you see the replay, I went down from being tired,” Ramirez insisted.
“I didn’t see myself as the loser.”
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Robeisy Ramirez produced a stunning uppercut knockout on Brandon Benitez in the seventh round of their Featherweight fight.
Victory would set him up for exciting fights with other champions, like Nick Ball or Angelo Leo, in 2025.
“There’s no problem fighting any of them. That’s one of the things I’ve always had in my mind in my career and one of the things I need to do in my career,” he declared.
“Now I have to recover my title and I will be ready to unify against any of the champions who are there.”
Boxing coming up on Sky Sports
December 8
Emanuel Navarrete vs Oscar Valdez II
Rafael Espinoza v Robeisy Ramirez II
December 14
Natasha Jonas vs Ivana Habazin
Lauren Price vs Bexcy Mateus
Stephen McKenna vs Lee Cutler
December 15
Jaime Munguia vs Bruno Surace
December 21
Oleksandr Usyk vs Tyson Fury II (live on Sky Sports Box Office)
Oleksandr Usyk vs Tyson Fury II will be live on Sky Sports Box Office
December 24
Naoya Inoue vs Sam Goodman
January 11
Callum Simpson vs Steed Woodall
Caroline Dubois vs Jessica Camara
February 1
Adam Azim vs Sergey Lipinets
Rafael Espinoza vs Robeisy Ramirez will be live on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports+ from 1.30am on Sunday
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