Vergil Ortiz seems to have won over fans. Sixteen knockouts in 16 fights have a way of seizing your attention.
Ortiz’s peers are also taking notice of the 22-year-old welterweight contender from Dallas, who faces the toughest test of his career against Maurice Hooker this Saturday at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas (DAZN).
Shawn Porter, a 147-pound rival and straight-shooting broadcasting analyst, was asked on The PBC Podcast whether he’s impressed with any of the rising young stars in the division.
He quickly responded with two names: Vergil Ortiz and Jaron Ennis.
“There are two guys in particular, Vergil Ortiz and Jarron Ennis, that are flat-out electrifying fighters,” said Porter, who has no stake in the career of either fighter. “They’re exciting in different ways … but they both have that ‘it’ factor.
“They’re both special fighters.”
Mikey Garcia, the former four-division titleholder, works alongside Ortiz under the tutelage of trainer Robert Garcia, Mikey’s brother, at the famous Robert Garcia Boxing Academy in Riverside, Calif.
The younger Garcia laid out his impressions of his stablemate in an interview with Boxing Junkie.
“He’s strong, very, very strong,” he said. “It’s easy to see and feel. I’ve sparred with him a few times. That makes him dangerous. And he’s very young, very hungry and very confident. He really believes in himself.
“You might be trying to box, trying to land a few shots against him and it doesn’t discourage him at all. It’s a combination of those things. And now he’s gaining more experience.
“He’s sparring some of the guys we have at the gym. He’s learning more defense, more reflexes, how to time your punches, your combinations. All of that is only making him a better fighter.”
Ortiz does believe in himself but he isn’t boastful.
He knows his opportunity to fight for a world title is coming soon – he has already had preliminary talks with the handlers of WBO champ Terence Crawford – but he takes a one-step-at-a-time approach to his career, especially at such a young age.
And he takes nothing and no one for granted, including Hooker, with whom he’s familiar because the former 140-pound titleholder also is from Dallas.
“Hooker is the guy I have to beat to even think about fighting guys like Crawford,” Ortiz told Boxing Junkie. “This is definitely my toughest fight. He has a long reach (80 inches), he’s in his prime now. He’s like 31. It’s going to be a really good, tough fight.
“He’s been a world champion. You can’t a be a world champion without being a good fighter. Really, that’s all I have to say.”
Hooker (27-1-3, 18 KOs) lost his title to Jose Ramirez by a sixth-round knockout in July 2019, the result of a big left hook to head and an explosive flurry of follow-up punches that prompted the referee to stop the fight.
Ortiz pointed out that the beginning of the end for Hooker was a hard left hook to the body that brought his right hand down moments before the shot to the head.
“He dropped his right hand and got caught with the hook. And that’s all she wrote,” said Ortiz, adding that Hooker will have learned from his mistakes. “That just means he’s not going to sit there the way he did with Jose. He’ll have a different game plan.”
The oddsmakers don’t give Hooker much of a chance: Ortiz is an 8-1 favorite, meaning he’s likely to have his hand raised regardless of his opponent’s strategy.
If that happens, Ortiz will then settle back into a waiting game he hopes will produce a fight against the likes of Crawford. He understands that matchmaking is a tricky game, particularly when prospective opponents are aligned with competing entities.
He also understands that he has to be patient and be ready when the he gets the call. And when it arrives, he certainly won’t say “no.”
How would he fare against such established champions Crawford, Errol Spence Jr. or Manny Pacquiao, the kings of a deep welterweight division? Mikey Garcia, for one, wouldn’t put anything past him in spite of his relative lack of experience.
“Look, when you’re young and you have the tools, experience isn’t quite as important sometimes,” he said. “When I fought Orlando Salido, he was the man at featherweight. He’d already fought the best fighters of that generation in that division.
“… I was an up-and-coming young fighter, 25 years old. But I had the skills. And when you have the skills, when you have the tools, experience isn’t as big a factor as people think.”
Vergil Ortiz, he reiterated, has the tools.
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