When Lerrone Richards was offered the chance to challenge WBA interim light-heavyweight champion Albert Ramirez back in February, he saw before him the opening of a door. It had followed numerous other doors slamming shut in his face and therefore Richards, 19-1 (4 KOs), was eager to accept the opportunity and make it count.
The fight with Ramirez was set for February 5 in Montreal and Richards’ arrival in Canada signified him walking through that open door. He did not know what waited on the other side, of course, only that Ramirez would be there and that the Venezuelan’s WBA belt would be up for grabs.
Then, on February 4, Richards was woken to the sound of a fist knocking on a door: knock, knock, knock. In fact, it would probably be more accurate to capitalise the knocks – KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! – for there was an urgency to this action, perhaps even desperation. Whereas before it had been Richards who had been keen to knock down the door leading to Ramirez, now he was all of a sudden confronted with the prospect of someone else outside his hotel room with a desire just as strong to knock down his.
“There was a load of emotions,” Richards said, recalling that week in Montreal. “I was excited, I was in shape – great shape – and I was on weight. Everything had gone great and I was really looking forward to going out there and putting my skills on show and showing everyone I’m one of the best.
“Then literally, an hour before the weigh-in, I’m asleep and woken up by bang, bang, bang! on my door. I’m like, Woah, what’s going on? Obviously it’s important and whoever it is wants to get my attention. I thought maybe because I was napping, they had been knocking a while and I just hadn’t heard it, and that’s why the knocking had now become more of a banging.
“So, anyway, I got up and opened the door and it was Dave [Coldwell, Richards’ trainer] along with one of the other management people. Dave was like, ‘Lerrone, sit down,’ so I did. They then tell me that the fight has been cancelled. I was thinking they might be having me on – hoping that was the case – but then I thought to myself, No, they wouldn’t joke about something like that. They then said that he [Ramirez, his opponent] had been rushed to hospital with appendicitis. I just thought, Wow, there’s nothing I can do about this.
“I took it better than I thought I would actually. I’m quite a cool, calm and relaxed guy, so I was very relaxed about it. Obviously I was devastated and upset because it was my opportunity, but you can only control the controllables.”
Rather than express his frustration or get angry, Richards, a level-headed 33-year-old, was quite philosophical about what had transpired in Montreal. He knew, as he said, that he could do nothing about it, so didn’t expend any energy or emotion trying. Instead, he saw the experience as something to now navigate and even learn from. There would be no fight that week, alas, but that didn’t mean the trip was a total waste of time for Richards and his team.
“We did a press conference and a public workout-type thing,” said Richards. “I just did a bit of shadowboxing, nothing too tense. We did a face-off at that, then we did the press conference, had another face-off there, and then the day after that was the weigh-in. Was meant to see him then, of course, but I didn’t see him. I then went to the show on the Thursday and didn’t see him there, either. On the Friday, flying back, I saw him at the airport.
“It was all a bit of a whirlwind,” Richards recalled. “Because it was only an hour from the weigh-in, I was thinking, Let me go to the weigh-in anyway. But I then decided it would be best not to, so we didn’t. Then they asked me if I wanted to leave and I said, ‘No, I’ll just wait.’ I’d been to Canada before late last year sparring the likes of [Iman] Khataev, so I already knew the country a bit. But I didn’t know exactly where I was fighting [Ramirez], so I went along to the show and sampled the atmosphere, just in case I fight him again at the same arena [Montreal Casino]. I soaked it up a bit and used it as an experience. I then left on the Friday with the team.”
Even if the fight with Ramirez had not been rearranged and Richards had been left in the cold, he would have still considered his brief time in Montreal as a valuable experience. Yet now, because he has a new date for the Ramirez fight, the Londoner almost feels as though he has gone through a dress rehearsal ahead of finally meeting the champion on June 4 – at the same venue as before.
“A fighter can develop by having fights, of course, but sometimes it’s also about the training camp and the experiences that happen around the fight,” he said. “Now I feel like I’m twice the fighter I was at the start of the year – from that first camp to this one. I didn’t really need to fight to make that progression. I didn’t fight. My performance is only going to be better next time. It’s a good fight for me. Ramirez is a top operator but this is the level I belong at and where I will operate best at. I can’t wait to win and pick up a version of a world title once again.
“It was always a good fight, but I feel like it only caught momentum during fight week. Before that it went under the radar a bit. It was a weird one. I feel like with it being rescheduled now it will be a lot bigger. I know it’s going to be on DAZN as well, which is great.”
Hear that sound? It’s no longer the sound of a trainer knocking frantically on the door to bring his fighter bad news before his big day. It is instead the sound of Lerrone Richards entering his key into the lock, turning the handle, and opening doors to which he didn’t even have access two months ago.
