Ramiro Cesena wakes up today with the first defeat on his record. Cesena got stopped in the 10th round against Thomas Mattice in San Antonio, Texas last night on the Jesse Rodriguez vs Christian Gonzalez Hernandez undercard.
Referee Rafael Ramos’s decision to stop the bout in the final round has proved unpopular among many, none more so than Ramiro Cesena (16-1-1, 13 KOs), who pleaded with the referee after the win had been given to Mattice.
ProBox TV News spoke exclusively to Cesena’s manager, Flavio Oleaga Mirabal moments after the disputed knockout decision over his fighter.
“We were ahead on all the scorecards.” Mirabal stated. “It’s very sad, it’s bullshit! Even the fact that if Cesena had a knockdown and lost a point, he was still up on all three judges scorecards. We came here as the underdog for this great show. It was a great fight from Cesena.
“Mattice put together 13 or so punches, but nothing really landed. There were three good shots from Mattice in that round, most were hitting the arms or missing. Cesena said to me after the fight that he was in trouble for just a second, but it was just a second, you can see him recover. If you rewatch the fight, Mattice is landing on gloves. You can see Cesena is going to throw a punch and the referee jumps in.
“This is always a problem in Texas or America.“ Added Mirabal. “I don’t like the title fights here. It’s very different with title fights in Europe, you have three judges from three different countries, Spain, France and Denmark for example. In America all the judges are from America or that specific state. And then they protect their fighter. This referee was looking for an opportunity to stop the fight.”
Rankings places were up for grabs in Texas with a regional belt on the line. Mirabal, who conducts his business from Germany, compared the difference in such fights between Europe and USA in his own opinion.
"I spoke to the WBC about this after the fight, they agreed with me.” Mirabal continued. “They said ‘Flavio you are right.’ If he was behind on the scorecards, then okay, it is alright I suppose. The whole arena saw what was happening. He didn’t even go down in the final round after those punches, the referee didn’t even give him a chance to get knocked down and get back up. We spoke to Eddie Hearn and the matchmaker after the fight, they said maybe we do a rematch, but you know the game. It’s very very bad for us and just not fair.”
