Gilberto Ramirez vs Joe Smith Jr. Prediction and Picks October 7

Gilberto Ramirez vs Joe Smith Jr. Betting Preview

Gilberto Ramirez and Joe Smith Jr. head to The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas to box in a light heavyweight match on Saturday, October 7 as WagerTalk boxing handicapper Kevin Dolan gives his Gilberto Ramirez vs Joe Smith Jr. prediction and picks with match time set for 5:15pm ET.

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Gilberto Ramirez vs Joe Smith Jr. Betting Odds

Saturday, October 7	Boxing Betting Notes (Courtesy of Caesars)
Moneyline:	Gilberto Ramirez -310 vs Joe Smith Jr. +230
Rounds:	N/A
Fight Time:	Main Event 11:15pm ET / 8:15pm PT
Arena:	The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas
TV:	DAZN

Gilberto Ramirez vs Joe Smith Jr. Betting Analysis

In what’s set to be an interesting crossroads fight for both men on Saturday night, former WBO light heavyweight title holder Joe ‘The Irish Bomber’ Smith will take on former WBO super middleweight title holder Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez over at the Cosmopolitan this weekend in Las Vegas.

Don’t be fooled by Ramirez’s previous rank as a super middleweight champion either as he’s actually the bigger man ahead of this fight, and has looked solid down at light heavyweight for a number of years now.

This will be both fighters’ first foray into the cruiserweight division, and at 32 and 34 years of age respectively, a solid cruiserweight run may well be either fighter’s last mark on the sport, so a win will be seen as imperative in this one.

Zurdo Looking For Respect At Cruiserweight

Despite an impressive 38-0 record and sitting as the WBO super middleweight champion for a couple of years back in 2018, Gilberto Ramirez, for whatever reason, never came up against the biggest names in the division.

A huge all-Mexican war against Canelo was always talked about but unfortunately never came to fruition.

David Benavidez was yet another Mexican champion in the same division whose fight never materialized and, perhaps most frustratingly, similar to Lucian Bute before him, Ramirez opted out of the lucrative $50 million WBSS Super Middleweight tournament in 2017-2018.

He was seen as possibly the best in the division at that time, instead letting Britain’s Callum Smith win the tournament and become the #1 super middleweight on the planet.

That avoidance of the top fighters previously has been criticized, but thankfully Ramirez has had a much better run at light heavyweight, facing solid fighters in both Sullivan Barrera and Yunieski Gonzalez.

However, the one elite-level test he did come against, WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, saw him badly outclassed late last year in a fight many expected him to be competitive in, but with that ‘0’ finally gone, we may well see the best of Gilberto Ramirez moving forward.

Joe Smith Jr. Looks For One Last Run

Joe Smith Jr., one of boxing’s most down-to-earth fighters given he’s spent most of his career working construction in his native New York, blasted onto the season back in 2016 with a brutal 1st round KO of the highly accomplished Polish fighter Andrzej Fonfara, a display that put the boxing world on notice.

That notice extended to ATG hall-of-famer Bernard Hopkins, who believed he could stay away from Smith’s power and outbox the younger man in the ring, something he’d made a lengthy career of doing, but even Hopkins’s skills weren’t enough to keep Smith off him as he was put through the ropes in the eighth round of that fight, a result that forced him to call time on his legendary career.

Joe Smith Jr. is a ferocious power puncher, boasting 22 knockouts in his 28 wins, but has been susceptible to getting outboxed in fights, most notably by Sullivan Barrera, and again by common opponent Dmitry Bivol back in 2019.

He lost once again last year, getting destroyed in two rounds in an all-out war against the ferocious Artur Beterbiev, but that display just highlighted Joe’s mindset ahead of fights, that he comes to exchange, a fact that nearly cost Bivol late in their fight as well.

Gilberto Ramirez vs Joe Smith Jr. Expert Prediction

Both fighters have the ability to end fights well within the distance here, with both carrying sizeable power in the ring, especially Joe Smith Jr., so I’m expecting Ramirez to play it smart here and box a little more cautiously in his cruiserweight debut.

Smith is limited from a technical perspective, as Beterbiev proved in his last fight, able to get inside those power hooks of Smith’s and deliver massive punishment on the inside, something Smith was unable to counter.

While Gilberto Ramirez isn’t on the level of a prime Artur Beterbiev, few are quite frankly, Zurdo nonetheless does possess an advanced inside game, and if he can get inside Joe Smith’s wheelhouse here, he could cause problems for the Long Island native in this one.

Joe Smith Jr. is a major problem for any fighter across 12 full rounds, and if Ramirez switches off for a second here, it could cost him his night. That said, if Zurdo remains careful in this one and boxes to his advantage on the inside, I can see him winning a decision on Saturday night over in Las Vegas.

Prediction: Gilberto Ramirez by Dec/Tech Dec (No odds listed at the time of writing)

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