Jose Ramirez’s eleventh-round knockout of Richard Commey that headlined ESPN, this past Saturday’s telecast, saw Ramirez once again land the coveted spot of the WBC number one contender for the junior welterweight division. That said, this is nothing new as he had a chance to face Prograis in the fall for the vacant WBC title, and couldn’t due to getting married, and his March 25th fight was originally to be against Prograis until talks failed.
The talking point all week from the Ramirez team, which mainly consists of Rick Mirigian, Ramirez’s manager, was that Ramirez had to be compensated fairly since Ramirez would be bringing a venue, fanbase, and a national network, ESPN, to the table for the world title fight. It is fairly obvious, Prograis is one of, if not the toughest fight in the division, and it seems that team Ramirez wants what they perceive as “fair market value” prices for this.
“We both deserve a fair share [of money for the fight], a percentage it means something, but there is a number behind that percentage,” stated Ramirez after his win on ESPN to a selected group of media after the fight. “[Prograis and his team] need to treat me [and] compensate me the way I have been compensated with…I just want to fight, man. Enough about business, people don’t want to hear that anymore. [Let’s sit down] and make the fight.”
Prograis, who is very active on social media took to his social media account to express his views on Jose Ramirez’s thoughts after the fight.
Mirigian sat down with ProBoxTV News earlier this week to express his opinion, on the situation, his is an excerpt from his side of the story as to why Ramirez and Prograis didn’t fight on March 25th in Fresno, Ca.
“Here are the facts,” stated Mirigian last week. “[Prograis vs Ramirez] is a fight [Prograis] could make more money than any other person he could fight, that is a fact. The second fact, is there was a high probability, if not a certainty that [Regis Prograis] would’ve been on a major network like ESPN, which he needs. Another fact, the gate, the attendance, and those things involved, we all now know, what I said happened, there is 15,000 people [attending Jose Ramirez’s fight on March 25th in Fresno, California], that [Prograis] would have been fighting here [and in-front of]."
