His Excellency Turki Alalshikh revealed three options for Vergil Ortiz Jr’s next fight if he fails to get the clash against Terence Crawford in February 2025.
Vergil Jr, 26, hopes that WBA junior middleweight champion Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) will face him next after his recent 12-round majority decision win over WBC interim 154-lb champion Serhii Bohachuk on August 10th. However, Turki says he doesn’t think Crawford will agree to any fight, but Canelo Alvarez.
That leaves Vergil Jr. without an opponent for his next fight, and his dad, Ortiz Sr., has already ruled out giving Bohachuk a rematch.
Israil Madrimov: The Most Realistic Option
Turkish listed these three fighters to the Stomping Grounds for Vergil (22-0, 21 KOs) to potentially fight next:
- Israil Madrimov
- Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis
- Tim Tszyu
Of those three, former WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov (10-1-1, 7 KOs) is the most realistic for WBC interim 154-lb champion Vergil Jr. to face next because he has no fights planned, and Eddie Hearn promotes him.
Madrimov would be another hard fight for Vergil Jr. because it would face a guy with excellent power and a highly technical game. The shots that Vergil Jr. was landing against Bohachuk will be harder to connect with against Madrimov, who has superb defensive skills.
It would be a good test to show whether Vergil Jr. is good enough to compete with the best at 154 because his performance against Bohachuk left a lot of question marks in the minds of boxing fans because he was dropped twice and looked beaten up afterward.
Madrimov doesn’t throw as many punches as Bohachuk, but the power in his right hand is better and more jarring because he throws it at unexpected times.
Tszyu is focused on challenging IBF junior middleweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev next, and he wants to fight Erickson Lubin and Sebastian Fundora in that order.
Boots Ennis has made it known that he intends to stay at 147 to further his goal of becoming the undisputed champion in the weight class. He’s not going to budge for anything, but with that said. If Turki offers Ennis (32-0, 29 KOs) enough money, he could be tempted to move up to 154. It’s not likely, though.
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