His last fight against Mexico\u2019s Sebastian Hernandez was a Fight of the Year candidate.<\/a> Did that fight take too much away from Nakatani or did it give him the right preparation for Inoue?<\/p>\nWe shall find out.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cinco de Mayo Showdown: Gilberto \u201cZurdo\u201d Ramirez vs David Benavidez<\/p>\n
![\"the](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/the-sweet-science_IUsolW5T-300x180.png\" "\\"the")
<\/p>\n
Unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto \u201cZurdo\u201d Ramirez (48-1, 30 Kos) defends against two-division champion David Benavidez (31-0, 25 Kos) on Saturday May 2, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Amazon Prime pay-per-view will show the TGB and Golden Boy Promotions event.<\/p>\n
\u201cCinco de Mayo weekend is back and its bigger than ever,\u201d said Tom Brown, promoter for TGB Promotions.<\/p>\n
Benavidez has been chasing a big fight for several years. He cleaned up the light heavyweights and could not find anyone willing to step up. He definitely wanted a Mexican showdown with Saul \u201cCanelo\u201d Alvarez, but the timing was not right for the redhead. So, when Zurdo won not just one but two cruiserweight titles, voila! A Mexican showdown appeared with the southpaw fighter from Mazatlan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been training for five months for this fight because Zurdo Ramirez is a great fighter,\u201d said Benavidez, who is moving up 25 pounds to face Ramirez. \u201cI\u2019m not scared of nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramirez, like Benavidez, was in search of a big money fight and could not find any. He did fight Russia\u2019s Dmitriy Bivol and was out-worked in a light heavyweight fight. So he moved up to a heavier weight and found success.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth of us fighting on Cinco de Mayo weekend, it\u2019s just perfect timing,\u201d Benavidez said.<\/p>\n
It will be Mexican against Mexican on Cinco de Mayo weekend in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019m a bad MF,\u201d Benavidez said.<\/p>\n
The first Mexican fighter to fight in Las Vegas on Cinco de Mayo was Julio Cesar Chavez on May 8, 1993 when he fought Terrence Ali at the Thomas and Mack Center. Chavez returned on May 7, 1994 to fight Frankie Randall in a rematch at the MGM Grand. Then came De La Hoya fighting Ruelas on May 6, 1995 at Caesars Palace. Next De La Hoya met Yory Boy Campas on May 3, 2003, then met Ricardo Mayorga on May 6, 2006, followed by Floyd Mayweather on May 5, 2007.<\/p>\n
This weekend marks the first time cruiserweights headline a Cinco de Mayo fight card in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s my friend, I like him, but we are here to win,\u201d said Ramirez.<\/p>\n
Fights to Watch Saturday, May 2nd (Pacific Time)
Inoue vs Nakatani at 6:00 a.m. (DAZN PPV)<\/p>\n
Ramirez vs Benavidez at 5:00 p.m. (Prime PPV)
*main event ring walks expected around 8:20 p.m.<\/p>\n
To comment on this article in the Fight Forum, please CLICK HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan Rising: Naoya \u201cMonster\u201d Inoue vs Junto \u201cBig Bang\u201d Nakatani A mega fight takes place this Saturday May…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,309801,105660,13412,311290,55599,311291,173996,61107,13414,13409,28130,311292,173859,140776,151088,207129,85,311293,25288,164630,25290,311294],"class_list":["post-642999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-cinco-de-mayo","tag-david-a-avila","tag-david-benavidez","tag-dmitriy-bivol","tag-floyd-mayweather-jr","tag-frankie-randall","tag-gilberto-ramirez","tag-julio-cesar-chavez","tag-junto-nakatani","tag-naoya-inoue","tag-oscar-de-la-hoya","tag-rafael-ruelas","tag-ricardo-mayorga","tag-rudy-hernandez","tag-saul-alvarez","tag-sebastian-hernandez","tag-sports","tag-terrence-ali","tag-the-sweet-science","tag-tom-brown","tag-tss","tag-yory-boy-campas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}