Vergil Ortiz Jr. and WBC interim junior middleweight champion Serhii Bohachuk have reportedly agreed to a fight on a date yet to be determined. It’s still unclear whether the Ortiz Jr.-Bohachuk fight will be added to His Excellency Turki Alalshikh’s card on August 3rd at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.
Boxingscene reports that Top Rank promoter Tom Loeffler has revealed that the matching between the unbeaten Ortiz Jr. (21-0, 21 KOs) and Bohachuk (24-1, 23 KOs) have agreed to a match.
Potential Addition to Alalshikh’s August 3rd Card
Ortiz Jr, 26, had been scheduled to face former WBO junior middleweight champion Tim Tszyu on the undercard of the August 3rd card, headlined by Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov.
Unfortunately, Tszyu pulled out because the cut he sustained in his last fight on March 30th wasn’t healed enough for him to make a quick return by August 3rd. If His Excellency can add the Ortiz Jr.-Bohachuk fight to the card, it would be great, as that fight would interest many boxing fans.
Bohachuk, 29, is coming off an impressive twelve-round unanimous decision win over Brian Mendoza last March.
Ortiz Jr.’s Resurgence at 154
The former welterweight contender, Vergil Ortiz Jr., has looked outstanding since moving up to 154 earlier this year, scoring a pair of first-round knockouts knockouts over Fredrick Lawson and Thomas Dulorme.
Ortiz Jr. looks like a different fighter than the one who was draining himself to fight at 147 and had health issues in the last two years. Hopefully, Ortiz Jr’s health problems are a thing of the past, and he can compete for a world title at 154.
Many fans on social media wanted to see Ortiz Jr. replace Madrimov in the main event as the opponent for Crawford to fight, but that wasn’t going to happen because he didn’t have a world title that would interest the Nebraska native.
Ortiz Jr. has got to move quickly to get in line to fight for one of the belts before Crawford leaves the division to move up to 168 to try and fight Canelo Alvarez. It would be interesting for boxing fans if Ortiz Jr. grinds the Crawford train to a halt, ruining his dreams of a Canelo fight before he retires.
Read the full article here
