LAS VEGAS – Vergil Ortiz Jr. refuted all that Serhii Bohachuk and the boxing world threw at him Saturday night, enduring two knockdowns and the gripes that he had never gone the distance by winning a heartfelt junior middleweight majority decision at Mandalay Bay.
Texas’ Ortiz (22-0, 21 KOs) won by scores of 113-113, 114–112, 114-112 by answering knockdowns in the first and eighth rounds with voluminous power punches.
While those hammering blows have reduced so many other foes to oblivion, Ukraine’s Bohachuk (24-2) was an immovable object, taking the shots to the head and body, and continually responding with power rights and resilient brawn.
That forced Ortiz into the deep waters past the ninth round for the first time in his career, and while it appeared Ortiz might be headed to his first defeat, he rallied impressively in the 11th and 12th, finally sending Bohachuk reeling in the final frame to gain the decisive margin.
Ortiz said it was due to his lifelong consistency of showing up at the gym and living cleanly since childhood.
“I’m the best in the world,” he said after strapping on the WBC interim junior middleweight belt he took from Bohachuk.
He might indeed have the chance to prove it, too, because Saudi Arabia’s boxing power broker Turki Alalshikh was sitting ringside after telling DAZN he wanted a victorious Ortiz, 26, to meet newly belted four-division and WBA junior middleweight titleholder Terence Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs).
“Let’s do it,” a smiling Ortiz said. “I want it so bad.”
The action was instantly riveting, with Ortiz unleashing heavy bomb rights and referee Harvey Dock calling it a first-round slip when a Bohachuk right landed cleanly to the head. Replay, employed before the fifth round, reversed the call and gave Bohachuk a knockdown and a 10-8 round.
Ortiz showed he wasn’t hurt by sending hard blows toward Bohachuk throughout the round’s remainder.
The exchange was more a mutual affair in the second and third as each man landed crushing blows that were both encouraging and discouraging – because neither man backed or budged.
While Ortiz belted Bohachuk with a wicked right uppercut, Bohachuk answered with a straight right that didn’t pause the relentless fighter, who had known nothing but knockout triumphs.
A small cut on the bridge of Ortiz’s nose emerged in the fourth.
After the bad news of the replay ruling, Ortiz again took the setback well, pounding Bohachuk’s body and repeating that attention in the sixth, leading to a dramatic exchange.
In the eighth, Bohachuk scored his second knockdown on a lead left hook to the head, which dropped Ortiz to his left knee. He protested to Dock – to no avail.
A cut over Ortiz’s left eye emerged in the ninth. Bohachuk snapped a crisp right to the head and appeared to seize the momentum through the 10th, until Ortiz repeatedly smashed Bohachuk with rights throughout the 11th.
Bohachuk finally weakened in the 12th after getting bashed by an Ortiz punch, losing his footing and briefly staggering backward, where he was met with more abuse.
A glove-tape malfunction seconds later gave Bohachuk a respite, but the pair finished as they started, exchanging power rights.
Bohachuk grinned when asked how it felt to lose despite scoring two knockdowns, and his promoter, Tom Loeffler, protested, “Look at Vergil’s face!”
But De La Hoya then had the mic, asking the fans, “Were you not entertained? That was the Fight of the Year.”
On Thursday, De La Hoya told BoxingScene he perceived the front-runner for a victorious Ortiz to be a victorious Tim Tszyu if the former WBO titleholder could regain a 154-pound belt as mandatory challenger to IBF belt holder Bakhram Murtazaliev in the fall.
Things changed as swiftly as words leaving the lips of Alalshikh.
With Alalshikh telling DAZN’s Beto Duran in a pre-fight interview that he wanted Ortiz to meet the 36-year-old Crawford, De La Hoya briefly mentioned that Tszyu was also in the mix – but then quickly sensed what the crowd wanted to hear.
Alalshikh also mentioned he wanted to see Golden Boy’s top-ranked lightweight contender, William Zepeda, to meet unbeaten three-division and WBC lightweight titlist Shakur Stevenson.
“Who wants to see Vergil Ortiz-Crawford and Shakur Stevenson-William Zepeda on the same card?” De La Hoya roared to the arena’s crowd, raising his arms to increase the frenzy.
The fans returned to their feet many times throughout the main event.
Yes, indeed, they’d love to see that.
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