WBO cruiserweight champion Chris Billam-Smith will take on WBA titleholder Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez in a unification bout on November 16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in an attempt to unify the cruiserweight division.
Billam-Smith has held the WBO cruiserweight title since 2023 after defeating Lawrence Okolie by majority decision. The 34-year-old has successfully defended his belt twice, first against Mateusz Masternak via corner retirement in December 2023, and most recently against Richard Riakporhe in a unanimous decision victory at Selhurst Park in June 2024.
“It’s a very hard test and it would be an honour for me to become unified champion,” Billam-Smith said, expressing his excitement for the unification bout.
Ramirez, a Mexican boxer, became the first from his country to win a cruiserweight title when he defeated Arsen Goulamirian for the WBA belt earlier this year. The 33-year-old has an impressive 46-1 record with 30 knockouts and previously held the WBO super-middleweight title from 2016 to 2019.
“The confirmation is we are in talks for that fight,” Billam-Smith had said to Sky Sports last week. “At the moment we’re looking at November. Not entirely sure where yet. We’re working on it and it’s an exciting unification fight against someone who has only been beaten by (Dmitriy) Bivol.” Now, a date has been confirmed and the fight is expected to fall through.
The winner of this bout will become the first unified cruiserweight champion since Oleksandr Usyk held the WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO titles in 2018. Billam-Smith, who has held the European, British, and Commonwealth cruiserweight titles in the past, is looking to add the WBA belt to his collection and cement his legacy as one of the best cruiserweights in the world.
Both men are no strangers to holding titles, and they both have the same amount of professional losses on their records, 1, which makes it a very interesting fixture to look forward to. Although Ramirez is the younger between the two, by a year, he has fought more matches, 47, compared to Billiam-Smith’s 21. The outcome of the match means one of them walks away the new cruiserweight unified champion, while the other gets their second career loss, and also loses their title.
