Jesus Ramos defeats Luke Santamaria by unanimous decision

Jesus Ramos remained unbeaten on the Gervonta Davis-Rolando Romero card Saturday in Brooklyn.

The rising 21-year-old junior middleweight contender had some difficultly with the undersized, but slick Luke Santamaria in the early rounds but gradually took control and won the 10-round bout by a wide decision.

The scores were 98-92, 97-93 and 97-93.

“It wasn’t the way we wanted to win,” Ramos said, “but I think it takes two to tango and tonight I was the one who wanted to fight. I’m not really satisfied.

“I could have done a lot better but like I said, it takes two to tango and tonight Santamaria didn’t want to fight.”

Another way of looking at it is that Santamaria (13-3-1, 7 KOs) wanted to engage carefully against a bigger, strong man, which was his best hope to be competitive.

Santamaria, who moved up from 147 pounds for the fight, frustrated Ramos (19-0, 15 KOs) for much of the first half of the fight with his sticking and moving. However, Ramos, remaining patient, gradually cut off the ring and landed more and more punches as the fight progressed.

Ramos essentially pulled away from Santamaria in the final rounds, giving him his third decision victory in his past four fights.

“I could have pressed a little more, gone to the body a little more,” Ramos said. “He was kind of slippery in there, and I didn’t want to risk anything because he would counter. So I was trying to stay composed and stay at my distance.

“I’m going to go back and watch the fight and grow. I went 10 rounds again, and it’s going to help me mature a lot more.”