It’s never an uneventful weekend in boxing, even if the scheduled fights don’t always feature the top boxers in the sport. Such was the case last weekend where we saw a number of interesting results and events occur, including the main event between Jarrell Miller and Lucas Browne.
In Dubai, Jarrell Miller (26-0-1, 22 KO’s), the disgraced American Heavyweight who was absent from boxing for nearly four years after consuming a record-amount of PEDs – on two occassions in the span of a month, first returned to the ring in 2022 where he fought against low-tier opposition prior to facing Lucas Browne (31-4, 27 KO’s), the former WBA Heavyweight world champion. Jarrell Miller – coming in at 333 pounds – took some time to defeat the 43-year old Australian who at this stage of his career can be considered far past his peak.
Both Jarrell Miller and Lucas Browne were engaged in a slug fest throughout the fight, with the sixth culminating in the two desperately looking to gain the edge by throwing wild haymakers and hooks. Miller seemed to badly buckle Browne in the fourth, but failed to capitalize on his advantage and let a sure-fire victory slip by his hands through a lack of effort. In the last minute when the two had slowed down, Jarrell Miller emerged with several hard rights which eventually floored Browne into the ropes and forced the referee to call the fight off. As a result, Miller won by technical knockout in the sixth round.
Though far from technical, the match was highly entertaining due to the activity of two of the heaviest Heavyweights in the top 50 who shunned their defense in order to get any hit in. Ultimately, Jarrel Miller – the younger and heavier fighter – edged out in a match that he would have been tipped to win 9/10 due to Browne’s age and the damage he has sustained throughout his career.
In an interview with IFL TV, Jarrell Miller seemed sober about his victory, remarking that he faced a good opponent who he was expected to win against, but could have done better performance-wise. He also called out Anthony Joshua (24-3, 22 KO’s), and stated the belief that Joshua needed him to revive his career following the former unified champion’s back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk (20-0, 13 KO’s), as well as the two needing to conclude some “unfinished business”. He also expressed an acute interest in current WBA ‘Regular’ Heavyweight world champion, Daniel Dubois (19-1, 18 KO’s).
In the USA, the biggest planned fight of the weekend was supposed to be the Light-Heavyweight contest between former WBO Super Middleweight champion, Gilberto Ramirez (44-1, 30 KO’s), and boxing’s favorite underdog, Gabriel Rosado (26-16-1, 15 KO’s). Unfortunately, their match was canceled after Ramirez came in at least 7 pounds over the weight limit which made it impossible to continue the match given the rulings of the sport and the amount he came in by.
Following his missed weight debacle, Gilberto Ramirez has faced a number of repercussions, including a fine for every kilo or pounds he was overweight, and he also been suspended by the California State Athletic Commission – in whose region he was supposed to fight in – for his lack of professionalism. He will be unable to fight for the next six months – in at least the United States – as the other Athletic Commissions will likely uphold his suspension.
With the USA’s most highly-anticipated match unfortunately canceled, the fight card still continued with a set of fights between relatively unknown fighters who were looking to make a name on a major platform in DAZN.
Former two-division champion Joseph Diaz (32-4-1, 15 KO’s), the most well-known fighter in the event, grabbed the most attention but for the wrong reasons as he failed to shake down the loss he suffered in October of 2022 against Lightweight contender, William Zepeda (27-0, 23 KO’s). Instead, the American fighter stumbled to an unfortunate split-decision loss against the slightly-older Mercito Gesta (34-3-3, 17 KO’s) from the Philippines who surprisingly turned up in his match with Diaz to fight as if he was the younger fighter. Notably, their fight was held at the 140 lbs limit, instead of 135 lbs where Diaz had been campaigning for the past two years.
Joseph Diaz was once regarded as one of the best American prospects when he first came onto the professional scene as a Super Bantamweight in 2012. Roughly decade later, Diaz now finds his career on the brink of collapse after suffering his third defeat in a row. Though his first loss came against Gary Allen Russel Jr. (31-2, 18 KO’s) in 2018, but that defeat was more a motivator in a sense as Diaz went on to record a winning streak until he drew with Shavkat Rakhimov (17-0-1, 14 KO’s) while challenging for the vacant IBF Super Featherweight title.
Diaz moved up a weight class after his match with Rakhimov and seemed to gain some traction in the Lightweight division after a dominant victory over Lightweight contender, Javier Fortuna (37-4-1, 26 KO’s) in July of 2021. That would be Diaz’ last win as he went on to lose to current Lightweight undisputed champion Devin Haney (29-0, 15 KO’s), Zepeda and as of recently Gesta.
