Vergil Ortiz Jr. surprised a lot of people in 2019 – including himself.
Ortiz, who faces Brad Soloman on Dec. 13 in a scheduled 12-round welterweight bout to close out his remarkable year, had been on an impressive run of knockouts but that was against second-tier opponents. What happened when he stepped up his opposition? Same results.
Ortiz (14-0, 14 knockouts) became the first to stop veterans Maurico Herrera and Antonio Orozco in May and August, respectively. Solomon (28-1, 9 KOs) also has never been KO’d.
Few prospects are as hot as the 21-year-old Ortiz at the moment.
“I would grade this year as definitely A+,” said Ortiz, who started the year by stopping Jesus Barrayan in January. “I’ve fought some quality opponents. I took them out when some people didn’t believe I would – including me. I’ve really shown that I really belong with the top dogs.”
What’s Ortiz’s secret? As his trainer, Robert Garcia put it, “He works his ass off.”
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“Vergil is only 21 so he’s a very young fighter,” Garcia said, “but at 21 he already has the strength, the mentality, the experience of a 27-year-old. He’s focused on one thing and that’s to become a world champion and to beat anybody in front of him. He’s one of the, if not the hardest working fighter I have in my gym, including all the world champions.
“He works his ass off. That’s one thing that he was raised to do, since he was a kid with his dad, his dad prepared him for one thing and that’s to be great in boxing. Little by little, he’s been growing and now he’s a professional, now he’s ready for any top fighter in the division.”
That doesn’t mean Ortiz is looking beyond Solomon, a proven veteran with some notable victories. His stick-and-move style could test Ortiz in Indio, California. The fight will be streamed on DAZN.
“What I know about Brad Solomon, he’s a very experienced fighter, he has double the wins that I have,” Ortiz said. “He’s crafty, he definitely brings something different to the table than my past fighters you know, he’s not going to stay in the ring, he’s going to want to make me miss, going to want to stick a move.
“We haven’t seen me fight someone like that in the professionals yet so everyone’s going to see how I do against a fighter like that. I’m ready to show people that I can fight any way, if I need to adjust then I can adjust.”
When might Ortiz fight for a world title? Garcia said there’s no hurry.
“We don’t want to rush him,” he said, “we want to go fight by fight, especially right now at welterweight, we have to understand that a lot of the champions are fighting for other promotions and the fights are going to be very hard to negotiate. We’re not looking for any type of fight right now, we’re going fight by fight. If the right fight for a title comes, maybe at a different weight division, maybe we would consider it, but it would have to be the right fight against the right champion.
“At welterweight I don’t see any champion fighting Vergil in 2020. There’s no rush. The fans still haven’t seen the best of Vergil Ortiz.”