Rising super middleweight contender Gilberto Ramirez, who has been so impressive in recent fights, will make his HBO debut on Jan. 24.

Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti told ESPN.com that Ramirez will face Maxim Vlasov in a scheduled 10-round fight. The bout will be the co-feature on the card headlined by the rubber match between welterweights Mike Alvarado (34-3, 23 KOs) and Brandon Rios (32-2-1, 23 KOs) at the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, Alvarado’s hometown.

Ramirez (30-0, 24 KOs), a 23-year-old southpaw puncher from Mexico, has scored several impressive knockouts against solid opponents recently, including an eighth-round stoppage of veteran former title challenger Fulgencio Zuniga on Nov. 15.

Vlasov (30-1, 15 KOs), 28, of Russia has won 11 fights in a row since dropping a 10-round decision to Isaac Chilemba in February 2011.

“Vlasov presents a whole different problem for Gilberto Ramirez,” Moretti said. “His gaudy 30-1 record and no fear should present a pre-fireworks show leading up to Rios-Alvarado, which will truly shake the Rocky Mountains. This fight will go a long way in telling us where Gilberto Ramirez is as an elite fighter. I expect nothing but a good fight.”

Before HBO and Top Rank agreed to feature Ramirez in the Alvarado-Rios III co-feature talk centered on welterweight prospect Mikael Zewski (26-0, 20 KOs) being in that slot, perhaps against Sadam Ali, who looked good in a ninth-round knockout of Luis Carlos Abregu on Nov. 8 on HBO on the Sergey Kovalev-Bernard Hopkins undercard.

However, Zewski struggled to a 10-round majority decision win against Jeremy Bryan last Saturday on the Timothy Bradley Jr.-Diego Chaves undercard and HBO did not feel like he was ready yet for prime time.