Trainer Jeff Mayweather says Vergil Ortiz Jr. didn’t deserve his win over WBC interim junior middleweight champion Serhii Bohachuk last Saturday night.
Mayweather’s view that Vergil (22-0, 21 KOs) did not deserve his 12-round majority decision has been echoed by many fans on social media, who saw it as a plain old-fashioned robbery.
Vergil Jr.: A Simple, Everyday Fighter
Ortiz Jr. showed that he was not an elite fighter but a simple, everyday, come-forward type of fighter. He’s being groomed like former Golden Boy fighter Jaime Munguia, matched against weaker opposition to get the big cash-out. Vergil is now in a position to get his cash-out against Terence Crawford, and it’s already being talked about happening next, packaged with a match between Shakur Stevenson and William Zepeda.
Last night’s fight proved that with popular fighters like Vergil Ortiz, you have to knock them out to win because they’re arguably treated like their champions. As we saw last night, winning a decision against fighters like Vergil is almost impossible.
Jeff points out that Bohachuk (24-2, 23 KOs) scored two knockdowns, which put him up four points, and he won more than three rounds, which should have given him the win.
Vergil, his fans, and promoter Oscar De La Hoya argued that his two knockdowns resulted from slips. However, Bohachuk punched him in the head twice, which means punches caused the slips.
The judge’s decision didn’t make sense to many fans because Bohachuk was getting with the bigger punching and had Vergil on the run in the last quarter of the contest.
“He’s a good fighter, but I don’t think he really won tonight,” said Jeff Mayweather on his YouTube channel, talking about Vergil Ortiz Jr’s highly controversial win over Serhii Bohachuk on Saturday night.
“Two knockdowns, you’re already down four points. The other guy won more than three rounds,” said Jeff about Bohachuk dropping Vergil twice and winning more than three rounds. “I don’t believe in 10-9. I believe in 10-8,” said Jeff when asked about the possibility of Vergil having fought well enough to make his two knockdown rounds 10-9 instead of 10-8.
“Anytime there’s a knockdown, you get two points. It’s automatically 10-8.
Cash-Out with Crawford?
“I don’t think he’s ready for Terence Crawford,” said Jeff about Vergil Ortiz. “He’s a guy who has been built up with all these knockouts [against guys] nobody really knows how good the fighters he fought. Tonight, he had a real fighter in front of him, and it showed,” said Jeff about Vergil having been matched against poor opposition throughout his 21-fight career leading up to his controversial fight with Bohachuk.
Crawford looked so bad in his last fight against WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov on August 3rd that it’s hard to predict how he’ll do against Vergil.
Age is kicking in with Crawford, who turns 37 in September, and he’s probably going to enjoy the millions he made from the Madrimov fight and stay inactive until 2025. If Vergil does fight Crawford, it’ll be next year, and he’ll likely be 75% of what he was against Madrimov.
Crawford looked like he lost 25% from his previous fight against Errol Spence by sitting inactive for 13 months, and he’ll lose more by staying out of the ring until mid-2025. It’s hard to be ambitious when you’re already a millionaire and have so much stuff you can do daily with all that money.
While Vergil is an average, slow, heavy-handed plodder, he’d have a chance of beating Crawford because of his age and inactivity. If Crawford were still hungry and mentally motivated for the sport, he’d fight thrice a year and destroy a basic fighter like Vergil.
Vergil Ortiz = Alfredo Angulo 2.0
Ortiz Jr. reminds me of a younger version of Alfredo Angulo when he first started. Angulo had the same style and heavy hands but was very basic and there to be hit. He did well until matched against tougher opposition, which is what will happen with Vergil. Angulo had better power than Vergil, but he was the same fighter as him.
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