Rafael Espinoza captured the WBO featherweight world title in dramatic circumstances when he upset brilliant Cuban Robeisy Ramirez.
In their 12-round thriller Mexico’s Espinoza rose from the canvas in the fifth round to put Ramirez down in the last to edge a close majority decision win.
He makes his first defence of the title against Mexican rival Sergio Chirino Sanchez in Las Vegas, live on Sky Sports Action at 2am on Saturday morning.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum expects their world title fight to be all action.
“First of all, [Espinoza] had a great record in Mexico. He was known as a knockout guy and a very crowd-pleasing fighter and then we brought him to fight Robeisy Ramirez, assuming it would be a good test for Ramirez and lo and behold Espinoza won the fight,” Arum told Sky Sports.
“It may very well be that he is one of these fighters that’s a jewel, that’s going to be very hard for anybody to beat.”
Arum suspects he could have a new star on his hands.
“That’s what we’ll see on Saturday. He’s fighting a very tough Mexican guy. I understand that they sparred together at one point and had hellacious sessions,” he revealed.
“That kind of fighter and those kind of fights is what builds stars.”
Ramirez returns to action the following weekend on the Teofimo Lopez undercard, also live on Sky Sports next Saturday.
The first Ramirez-Espinoza fight was so good, Arum expects to make a second before the winner then moves on to featherweight title unifications.
“I would want to run back the Robeisy Ramirez fight because that was such an upset and if he does it again – Robeisy was one of the best amateurs ever, two Olympic gold medals – then we know we really have something big on our hands,” he said.
“We have so many of the really good featherweights that we can make some interesting fights for him.”
On the undercard at Fontainebleau Las Vegas unbeaten prospects Andres Cortes and Troy Isley are both taking significant challenges.
Cortes goes in with former world title challenger Abraham Nova, while Isley meets fellow unbeaten middleweight Javier Martinez.
“They’re in tough. No more fooling around building up their records. They’re in very, very competitive fights and that’s the way it should be and that’s why they’ve moved from the bottom of the bill to the top of the bill,” Arum said.
“Cortes, who’s a local kid from Vegas, will be fighting Nova who’s been in many main events and this is a big, big, big step up for Cortes. And Isley is going to fight another one of our fighters Javier Martinez, also in a terrific, terrific battle. I understand they were rivals in the amateurs.
“So it’s going to be a very, very fun good card.”
Watch Espinoza vs Sanchez live on Sky Sports Action from 2am on Saturday morning