Golden Boy President Reveals Zurdo’s Next Two Opponents

Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez has shared the upcoming plans for WBA and WBO cruiserweight champion Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez (47-1, 30 KOs).

According to Gomez, after a well-deserved break, Zurdo will face mandatory challenger Yuniel Dorticos (27-2, 25 KOs). If successful, they aim to set up a unification bout against IBF titleholder Jai Opetaia (26-0, 2 KOs).

“The preliminary plan is to take care of the mandatory challenger. We’ll start addressing this soon. Zurdo is taking a well-deserved break right now. But yes, we have a mandatory challenger, Dorticos, whom we need to deal with.

The plan is to complete the mandatory defense and then see if we can arrange a unification bout to bring together two top fighters in this weight class,” Gomez told the Dan Rafael Fight Freaks Unite podcast.

Earlier, it was reported that David Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) might move up in weight to face Ramirez.

On November 16, Zurdo defeated Chris Billam-Smith (20-2, 13 KOs) via unanimous decision. In October, Jai Opetaia stopped Jack Massey (22-3, 12 KOs) with a sixth-round TKO. The Australian is scheduled to defend his title on January 8 against Hussein Jinkara (22-0, 18 KOs).