#Jose ramirez boxer coach full
#Jose ramirez boxer coach professional

“There are not many dams for the farms or our communities,” he says. During the long and terrible drought that stretched across the central valley of California until 2016, Ramírez campaigned for water relief while making his way as a fighter. He has raised funds and awareness and lobbied congressmen and local politicians to change working conditions, offer water relief and help immigrant communities. That appreciation has driven his subsequent activism.

#Jose ramirez boxer coach professional

The fighter, who has shown these attributes while compiling a 26-0 record in the professional ring, shakes his head before putting his thoughts into a simple sentence of clarity and power: “I appreciate these people.” Ramírez was half the age he is now so what did he think once his teenage eyes absorbed such resilience and strength. No one was asking her: ‘How are you feeling?’ They were having a normal conversation, laughing and joking.” Smiling and talking with another lady about a whole different subject. I got on the bus at 4.30am and there she was along with everyone else. “Guess what? The next morning she went back to work.

The 28-year-old laughs softly when I ask about the exhausted woman. We got her work done between us, while doing our own.” Me and my buddy came up with a system and shared her row of peppers between us.

#Jose ramirez boxer coach full

We wanted her to get paid the full hours even though there was nothing she could do for the next hour and a half. Then we started helping her out so she wouldn’t get behind in her work. She was two rows next to me and my buddy and I ran to help. “At two in the afternoon this 50-year-old woman fainted. Photograph: Mikey Williams/Top Rank Inc/Top Rank/Getty Images José Ramírez lands a punch during his win over Viktor Postol in September 2020. The first couple of hours after lunch you feel good but then your back starts hurting, the heat suffocates you. After that you’re talking about 110F heat. The first five hours are OK and you get your lunch break at 11am. “We start at 5:30am because it gets really hot. “It was around two in the afternoon,” Ramírez remembers. The seeds of Ramírez’s activism had been sown and they would be nurtured by another tough day in the broiling heat of the plantation. I was inspired and motivated by their loyalty to the job, the industry, their family. They showed up every morning and did their work.

There were 47-year-old ladies, men of 54. I was driven by little things – I wanted to buy them myself because I didn’t want my dad covering my personal bills. After four days my back was hurting so bad I didn’t know if I want to go to work again. My body was new compared to most people working there. “I was very athletic and well-conditioned. I started to appreciate what everybody does in our community. It was hard because the bell pepper plant is only two feet tall so you have to bend down, throw them in the bucket and stick them into the machine. $70 a day after I pay $5 for the bus ride. On the farm you would spend 10 hours bending down and picking bell peppers for $7.50 an hour. You wake up at four in the morning, be ready by 4.30am, walk down to the liquor store where he picked us up.

“I went with my buddy because his uncle was a crew boss and he drove the bus ,” Ramírez explains. So he found himself a job in the school vacation. He wanted new trainers but he didn’t want to ask his parents for money. Young José knew the back-breaking work people did on the surrounding farms, picking crops. This belt of land supplies more than half of the fruit and vegetables the entire US consumes every year. He explains that, in 2007, when he was 14, he still lived in Avenal, a little town in the central valley of California. Ramírez is an American of Mexican descent and his ethnicity and family’s roots have shaped his political outlook.

Ramírez knows the challenge he faces against Taylor and believes he will prevail, but we begin with the reasons for his activism. The winner will become boxing’s only current undisputed world champion. Ramírez, the WBC and WBO light-welterweight world champion, fights Scotland’s Josh Taylor, who holds the IBF and WBA titles, in a fascinating unification contest in Las Vegas on Saturday night. José Ramírez has been described as the most politically active boxer since Muhammad Ali and, in his riveting company, it does not take long to understand there is depth and truth to a statement that might initially sound like a snappy soundbite.