Ramirez Edges Richards in Controversial Split Decision

Albert Ramirez kept his unbeaten record and his interim WBA light-heavyweight belt in Montreal, but he did so with a split decision that will not be filed away among boxing’s cleaner pieces of administration.

At the Casino de Montréal, Ramirez was given the verdict over Britain’s Lerrone Richards after 12 rounds of awkward, tactical and increasingly frustrating boxing. Two judges had it 115-113 for the Venezuelan, while the third gave Richards what looked the more persuasive card at 116-112. It was not a robbery in the theatrical sense, because there were close rounds and not much came easily for either man, but it was certainly the sort of decision that leaves the loser wondering what else he was supposed to do short of bringing his own magistrate.

Richards arrived with a reputation for being difficult to look good against, and he lived up to every syllable of it. He boxed southpaw, kept the pace low, denied Ramirez rhythm and made the champion reach. Ramirez, normally a heavy-handed operator with a high knockout percentage, spent too much of the fight following rather than cutting off the ring, swinging with increasing irritation as Richards slipped, smothered and countered just enough to keep banking rounds.

The first half of the contest was not a thriller, but it was absorbing in the way only a technical fight can be. Richards worked behind the jab, changed the distance neatly and was quick to tie Ramirez up when the champion got close. Ramirez had moments when his physical strength and forward pressure impressed the judges, but clean punching was another matter. Too often, his work was caught on arms, missed, or reduced to single lunges from too far out.

By the middle rounds, Richards had settled into the sort of rhythm that can make a puncher look ordinary. He was not dazzling, and he was never likely to hurt Ramirez, but he was accurate, composed and clever with his feet. His counters were short rather than spectacular, yet they were cleaner than much of what came back. Ramirez’s problem was that he could not turn pressure into punishment. There is a world of difference between making a man move and making him suffer, and Richards was made to do plenty of the former but very little of the latter.

Ramirez, to his credit, never stopped trying to force the issue. He pressed forward, looked for the left hand and tried to rough Richards up whenever the Englishman lingered in range. But as the rounds passed, his work became broader and less disciplined. Richards, trained for exactly this sort of uncomfortable evening, kept spoiling the champion’s attacks before stepping away with the air of a man who had read the manual and, for once, remembered every page.

There were no knockdowns and no single dramatic moment to settle the argument. That made the scoring all the more important, and all the more contentious. Richards appeared to finish strongly enough to deserve the decision, particularly given how little clean work Ramirez was able to land in the closing stages. When the final bell sounded, there was no great roar of certainty. It was one of those endings where even the winner seemed to wait for confirmation rather than celebrate it.

The cards gave Ramirez the fight and preserved his unbeaten record at 23-0, with 19 knockouts, but they did not give him much else. For a man being moved towards the top end of the light-heavyweight division, this was an uncomfortable night. Richards, now 19-2, enhanced his standing despite the official result. His problem, as ever, is that he is too good to be welcomed and perhaps not exciting enough to be chased. That is a miserable combination in modern boxing, where being troublesome without being glamorous can be worse than being limited in terms of following.

Ramirez leaves with the belt, and history will show he won. The fight itself suggested something rather different: that Richards had the plan, the composure and the cleaner work, while Ramirez had the geography, the belt, and two scorecards by the narrowest of margins. Boxing has survived worse decisions, of course. It has also failed to learn from most of them.