Just two months later, the young Mexican defeated Brit Matthew Hatton convincingly in Anaheim, California to claim the WBC light-middleweight title and live up to his accolade in double-quick time.
Fast-forward a year and the next up and comer in line was middleweight Gilberto Sanchez Ramirez, who has slowly progressed from a youth title holding middleweight contender to a fully-fledged and world-ranked 168lber. Still unbeaten, and with 22 stoppages from his 28 wins, Rameriz was recently named the number two fighter with the WBC and stands on the verge of fighting for his first world title.
The one to watch for 2013, Ramirez’s compatriot Julio Ceja, completed a Mexican clean sweep for the first three years of the award and was duly slated to square-off against Jamie McDonnell in May that year for the vacant IBF bantamweight title. Fighting away from home and against the odds, Ceja lost for the first time in his career via a majority decision that could easily have gone the other way and would have been a result without complaint if it had.
As it was, McDonnell took the title on that occasion, although Ceja has not faded into the background and has since recorded three straight stoppages to keep up his 90% knockout ratio and acquire a top ten ranking to boot.
With Canelo’s prophecy already fulfilled, it is conceivable that both Ramirez and Ceja could follow his lead this year and join 2014 World Title Prospect Vasyl Lomachenko, who made it two champions from four this year when defeating Gary Russell Jr.
Lomachenko missed out when challenging Orlando Salido in his first title shot months prior, but came back strong and now holds the WBO featherweight championship to live up to his standout amateur career.
To see the full WBN Award winners over the years just type in the search box on the World Boxing News website.
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