Devin Haney is the fight Jose Ramirez ‘has dreamed of his whole career’

Jose Ramirez received the gift of all gifts when the deal was closed on his latest fight: opportunity.

Ramirez, a 32-year-old former unified junior welterweight titleholder coming off what some believe to be a crossroads defeat, will take on former two-division belt holder Devin Haney in May in the United States. The matchup will be part of a bill also featuring Ryan Garcia in a prelude to a rematch – and perhaps more than one – of his explosive clash with Haney last April.

In an event announced by Turki Alalshikh as Ring Magazine’s first-ever boxing card, Ramirez, 29-2 (18-0), will participate in the biggest fight of his career under circumstances his manager considers so sublime as to be something approaching divine intervention.

“I think it is the absolute perfect fight for Jose,” Rick Mirigian told BoxingScene on Monday night. “I think that God dropped this fight from the heavens. Like, this is the one. I’ve been with Jose since he was 16 years old, so obviously I’ve got a better perspective on him. I know what makes him tick, and I know what makes him hungry and motivated. I know what doesn’t. And I can tell you that this, without question, is the fight to motivate him at this point in his life.”

Ramirez, of Avenal, California, ripped off 26 consecutive wins to start his professional career but was never able to fully capitalize on the climb. He beat Amir Imam in 2018 to capture a vacant junior welterweight belt, then added another in a 2019 stoppage of Maurice Hooker. But when attempting to add a third in 2021, Ramirez was beaten for the first time in a punishing unanimous decision loss to Josh Taylor. Promotional issues slowed his progress on the road back, and last November a second career loss – to Arnold Barboza Jnr – all but stopped Ramirez in his tracks.

Enter Haney, 26, who represents the best opponent in the biggest fight of Ramirez’s career, and whose own recent hard times are what gave Ramirez an angle in. After Haney, 31-0 (15 KOs), was knocked down on three occasions by a Garcia left hook last April and beaten silly in an otherwise narrow unanimous decision for Garcia, the details that followed hardly mattered. Popped for performance-enhancers, stripped of the win and suspended for a year, Garcia was alternately defiant and self-pitying – but always confident in his superiority in the fight. Haney, meanwhile, filed a lawsuit against Garcia and otherwise retreated, seemingly shaken by the whole affair.

Mirigian isn’t fooling himself. He knows how Haney’s team is viewing Ramirez: He is a means to an end, a credible opponent on his way out of the game who will make for a viable connector to the next Garcia fight.

“Look, I respect the other side,” Mirigian said. “Oh, they think Jose is older now. They think he’s lost a step. They watched the Barboza fight.”

But Mirigian can hardly contain his excitement when talking about Ramirez getting his shot at Haney. He said Barboza (whom Mirigian also manages) “trained and executed a perfect fight, in my opinion,” to beat Ramirez last November. Age? Decline? False flags. Where Team Haney sees a stud put out to pasture, Mirigian sees a Trojan Horse – a fire-breathing, glass-chewing world-class fighter contained inside – being rolled into the ring to face Haney.

“This is the fight that he has dreamed of his whole career, meaning the world is going to be [focused] on him,” Mirigian said of Ramirez. “And for me, I love the fight. Jose’s pressure and his come-forward demeanor and his attributes, to me, they’re tailor-made for this fight. And Jose’s got a left hook, as we know.

“If Jose can get that pressure up and smother him, cut the ring off and go into that fight 100 percent motivated, I love it. I just love the fight.”

Mirigian calls it a 50-50 bout and says he doesn’t see the loser continuing on. For Ramirez’s part, his manager says, the stakes are clear.

“He knows that it’s the biggest fight he will have been in from an attention standpoint, a media standpoint, social media” Mirigian said of Ramirez. “He knows the magnitude of this fight, and I think that, immediately, that hunger is going to be there for Jose.”

Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be found at LinkedIn and followed on X and Bluesky.