Vergil Ortiz Jr scraped past Israil Madrimov to stay unbeaten and keep his interim title.
It wasn’t always the most pleasing fight to watch, but Vergil Ortiz Jr nicked a decision win over Israil Madrimov to remain undefeated and keep his interim WBC super welterweight title.
Ortiz (23-0, 21 KO) went the distance for the second straight fight, taking unanimous decision scores of 115-113, 115-113, and 117-111, the latter perhaps a bit wide, but unlikely to draw much controversy, because Madrimov (10-2-1, 7 KO) won over no neutral fans with his approach in this one.
The Uzbek technician was able to neutralize a lot of what Ortiz does well in the first half of the fight, but once Ortiz picked up the pace a bit more, he put himself in the driver’s seat and was able to control more of the tempo and tone of the bout, leaving Madrimov looking overly cautious.
It’s the sort of performance that could haunt Madrimov, 30, because in his last two bouts — both losses, to Bud Crawford and now Ortiz — it’s clear that he’s very skilled and very difficult to beat and to look good against, and historically that combination without a big natural audience of money-paying fans can make it hard to get good fights.
This is, of course, a different era in boxing, where nobody involved much cares how much money most of the big shows make, because they are designed for other purposes ahead of gate and pay-per-view revenue, but we’ll see what happens with Madrimov.
Ortiz, 26, sounded pleased with his performance, and said he knew exactly the fight he was getting into with Madrimov.
“This was expected. We knew what kind of fight it was going to be. He’s a tough opponent, he was there to win,” Ortiz said. “(I just had to) stay patient and not over-throw. I knew that I was going to have to be smart and pick my punches. … I just want to fight the best. Anyone Turki (Alalshikh) gives me, I’ll say yes. I never duck anybody.”
After wins over the gritty, action-minded Serhii Bohachuk and now the technique-heavy Madrimov, Ortiz has passed a pair of stern tests in his last two fights, and is right there with the best of the best at 154 lbs, especially now that we know Terence Crawford is going to move up and probably isn’t long for the sport in general.
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