Different environment, same result.
Vergil Ortiz Jr. delivered a brutal beating before stopping Samuel Vargas in the seventh round of a scheduled 12-round welterweight bout Friday behind closed doors at Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, Calif., Ortiz’s 16th knockout in as many fights.
In the process, Ortiz joined Errol Spence Jr. and Danny Garcia – 147-pounders Ortiz would like to face – as the only fighters to stop the tough, slick Vargas.
“I knew it was time to take him out,” Ortiz said. “If it went to the eighth, it would’ve been worse. So the ref did a good job stopping it in the seventh.”
The victory didn’t come easily for Ortiz.
Golden Boy’s hot commodity came out at the opening bell with controlled aggression, firing his power jab and following with hard, accurate straight rights to head. Vargas (31-6-2, 14 KOs) had a bloody nose before the end of the first round.
Vargas began firing back in Round 2, doing some good work to the body, but Ortiz generally maintained a pattern of outworking the underdog to win rounds and control the fight.
Vargas, apparently hoping to survive the early rounds and come on late in the fight, proved to be resilient. He rolled with many of Ortiz’s power shots and took the ones that landed surprisingly well given Ortiz’s power.
At one point late in the fight, after he had taken a barrage of punishing shots, he remained defiant, saying to Ortiz, “C’mon, hit me.”
Ortiz continued to oblige him. He began to land vicious punches in bunches in the seventh round, overwhelming Vargas, who tried to hold Ortiz to stop the onslaught and even tackled him at one point. That drew a warning from referee Jack Reiss.
The punches kept coming, though. And with two seconds to go in the final round, Reiss jumped in and stopped it. Vargas acted surprise but no one was overly critical of the stoppage. Vargas had taken enough punishment.
The CompuBox punch stats told an accurate story. Ortiz outlanded Vargas in overall punches 244-54, 154-44 in power punches. And the numbers support Ortiz’s contention that he takes defense seriously: Vargas landed 14% of his punches.
Ortiz was asked afterward to grade his performance. He complimented Vargas in his response.
“B+,” he said. “I think I did good, I think I did everything I was supposed to. He brought it out of me. I give props to him. He’s my toughest opponent to date.”
Ortiz obviously is ready to step up to the next level of opposition, meaning a genuine title contender or even a champion. The question is who and when.
Some people believe he’s ready for Spence, a pound-for-pounder, right now. That fight certainly would be embraced by boxing fans. However, he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. Thus, he’s aiming just a little lower.
“Someone like [Danny] Garcia and [Keith] Thurman,” he said. “I think they’re very good fighters that, honestly, I can beat. Let’s make the fights happen. … I’m here to take risks. That’s how you become great.”
In a preliminary bout, Shane Mosley Jr. (16-3, 9 KOs) of Pomona, Calif., defeated Jeremy Ramos (11-9, 4 KOs) of Puerto Rico in an eight-round middleweight bout by scores of 80-72, 80-72 and 79-73, meaning Ramos won one round on one card.
Junior featherweight prospect Hector Valdez (13-0, 8 KOs) of Dallas defeated Josue Morales (11-12-4, 1 KOs) of Houston by a near-shutout decision in an eight-round bout. The scores were the same as the Mosley-Ramos fight, 80-72, 80-72 and 79-73.
Still, Valdez wasn’t satisfied with his performance.
“I felt I had an OK performance,” he said. “I give myself a 7 out of 10. I was calm, which is good. But now I need to work on being calm and being active with my punches. Now I’m going to go back to the gym, and I hope to come back soon on another Golden Boy card.”
And, in a six-round welterweight fight, prospect Evan Sanchez (8-0, 6 KOs) of Parlier, Calif., defeated Issouf Kinda (18-5, 7 KOs) of Burkina Faso by a unanimous decision. Kinda went down in Round 4. The scores were 59-84, 58-55 and 60-53.
“I felt a little rusty in there,” said Sanchez, who last fought in February. “But I’m honored to be opening up for Golden Boy. I know a lot of people were watching. I hope to get a two-week break and come back very soon.”
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