It's Mexico vs Scotland this weekend as the unbeaten José Ramírez takes on the also unbeaten Josh Taylor in a bid to become the one and only world title holder in the Super Lightweight division.
In this piece we'll take a look at where the fight can be won and lost by both fighters and we'll give our prediction for the bout as on Saturday night/Sunday morning, one man will be crowned the unified super lightweight champion of the world.
Of Mexican descent, José Carlos Ramírez was a stand out amateur as a youngster winning the Junior Golden Gloves and the National Junior Olympics before going to on represent the United States at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Having won comfortably in the first round, he was beaten in the second round by Fazliddin Gaibnazarov, a fighter who went on to win Gold at the Rio Olympics four years later.
After a relatively disappointing Olympics, he decided to turn professional soon after and since then he's accumulated 26 wins in 26 outings in the paid ranks with 17 of his victories coming by way of stoppage.
His stereotypically tough, all action, hard hitting Mexican style has seen him build up a reputation as one of the most exciting fighters in the 10 stone division and in 2018, he claimed his first world title with a points defeat of Amir Imam before defending the belt twice.
He then became unified champion of the world when defeating the experienced Maurice Hooker for the WBC & WBO titles and after a controversial defence against Viktor Postol, a fight many people believe he lost, he now finds himself up against Josh Taylor for all four belts in the division.
So how will he get the better of Taylor?
Taylor is notorious for his technical southpaw ability. As well as being tricky, every shot the Scot throws looks like it's been drilled a million times so the last thing Ramirez wants to do is to make this fight a technical battle.
He needs to unsettle Taylor. He needs to make sure that he can't find a rhythm and in the process of doing that, land some heavy, telling shots that will deter the Scotsman from trying to mix it on the inside.
If Ramirez can make this a scrappy bout sort of like a street fight, he's got a good chance but he really needs to use his brain as Taylor is by far his toughest opponent to date.
Now to take a look at 'The Tartan Tornado,' Edinburgh's very own Josh Taylor.
In his own words "a bit of a nuisance" from a young age, Taylor's first experience of combat sports was taekwondo before finding himself in a boxing gym at his mum's place of work where he was trained early on by former world champion Alex Arthur.
From then, he got the bug and after building up a reputation on the amateur circuit, he represented Scotland at the 2010 and 2014 Commonwealth Games winning silver in 2010 then going one better and winning gold in 2014.
After boxing politics got in the way of him representing Great Britain at the 2016 Olympics, Taylor took the plunge to head in to the paid ranks and since then he's been absolutely faultless.
He picked up the Commonwealth Title in just his SEVENTH fight as a professional and then picked up the IBF World Title in just his 15th bout which came in the semi finals of the World Boxing Super Series.
Taylor would go on to defeat the unbeaten Regis Prograis in the final of the competition to become the WBA, IBF & Ring Magazine champion of the world and since that defeat of Prograis, he's breezed past Apinun Khongsong in a round with a beautifully timed body shot.
That now begs the question, how can he get the better of Ramirez?
For us it's simple. Ramirez is going to apply the pressure, that's a given more of less, so Taylor needs to be patient. With pressure fighters like Ramirez, they will always give you opportunity to land clean and as he's shown with his 13 stoppage victories from his 17 bouts, the Scotsman can whack a fair bit.
His southpaw stance will undoubtedly cause Ramirez problems so if he can make the Mexican chase him and then show his superior timing by walking him on to something big or by simply landing the cleaner punches over 12 rounds, he could make this a fairly easy night for himself.
There is no doubting that these two on paper are the best fighters in the 10 stone division. A combined 43 wins from 43 fights with 30 coming by stoppage, whoever wins this fight will undoubtedly be the best fighter on the planet at super lightweight.
Ramirez is the more experienced of the pair in the professional ranks having boxed 36 more rounds than Taylor but the most interesting factor is the experience at this level.
Despite having had nine less fights, Taylor has fought the much higher level of opposition. From Ramirez's first 17 fights, his opponents had a combined record of 191 wins, 77 losses and 14 draws from 282 fights. Compare that to the combined record of Taylor's opponents in his first 17 fights to date which is 298 wins, 68 losses and 14 draws from 380 fights, it's quite telling who's had the harder career so far.
For us, we're expecting a Josh Taylor masterclass.
Ramirez is going to have to force the pace of the fight, he can't sit back and try and outbox Taylor cause he won't be able to and if 'The Tartan Tornado' tried to force the pace himself, he'd be equally as effective on the front foot as he is the back foot.
At some point, the American will over commit and if Taylor can make him over commit off the back of one of his wild right hooks on to something big of his own, which we believe he will do, then it could quite potentially be lights out for Ramirez.
Expect Ramirez to win a couple of the earlier rounds off work rate alone but once Taylor finds his rhythm, he'll take over the fight and we believe he'll put on a bit of a boxing clinic.
Prediction: Josh Taylor To Win By KO/TKO/DQ In Rounds 9-12 Or By Decision
