Jose Ramirez has accomplished a lot. He is an Olympian, a unified world champion at 140 lbs holding both the WBC and WBO world titles, and a ticket seller in his home region of Fresno, California.

That being said misperceptions and great expectations will have his past fight with Viktor Postol, which served as his fourth defense of the WBC title and first defense of WBO, which he recently won from Maurice “Mighty Mo” Hooker last year, have people confused.

Ramirez won a close decision against Postol, who despite being 36-years-old, is a very tall fighter, who is economic with movement, has a very good jab as well as keeping distance and beyond that had sparred Jose Ramirez a lot, they both were in camp with Manny Pacquiao, and at one time shared the same coach, Freddie Roach.

Postol was very familiar with Ramirez, and Ramirez was familiar with Postol, now add the fact both fighters overtrained, going through three training camps for this fight, as well as the stylistic kebob that was this fight, to me it was simple. The assertion that Ramirez would run through or stop Postol was far too much and when it didn’t happen or the bout was competitive, we heard words such as “exposed” and “limited” rather than “gutted it out” and “found a way to win”.

It is a troubling trend in boxing in which fighters who have pathways to make bouts hard for another fighter will be written, and that perception from the writers to the fans, causes a major disconnect to the fans. Ramirez did look limited, but also won the fight, and did what he need to win.

In fact, Ramirez looked similar to how Josh Taylor looked when he fought Ramirez, but since Taylor fought Postol so early in his career, hard fought he won was amplified and heroic.

Only one man dominated Postol, and that was Terence Crawford, who is a generational great, but since Postol hasn’t been on TV a ton, and is now promoted by TGB Promotions, it seems like he ripe to be written off.

Let’s be honest, did Ramirez look good? No.

That said, who expected him to, after forgoing the holidays for his first camp, only to jump back into another camp, to see things delay once again training for nine months seemingly straight at the later stages of his career, will cause fatigue. Add with that, Postol and Ramirez have sparred so if they fatigue, they have a familiarity of how to work with each.

Oh, and don’t forget this was third time, Freddie Roach, Ramirez’s old coach, coached against Ramirez, as Roach helped with Jose Zepeda, Antonio Orozco, and now Viktor Postol, but even more telling was a man who worked closely with Ramirez, Marvin Somodio was also in that corner.

In short, it is hard to look impressive when your opponent knows you so well. Beyond that, Ramirez also had to deal with his coach, Robert Garcia, having a failed COVID-19 test, in which he had to take adequate measures to even corner him, which I am sure added stress, to an exhausting journey.

In short, Ramirez looked fine, Ramirez looked how seemingly always looks, but because of the undervalued nature of Postol, we’re now criticizing a marquee win, a good win, which is unfair to the fighter.