Vergil Ortiz Jr. has a new hit list of targets after a career-best win over Israil Madrimov in February.
Ortiz defeated Madrimov by unanimous decision on the stacked Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol 2 undercard to retain his WBC interim super welterweight title. Now the American is setting his sights on the other titleholders at 154 pounds, as well as one of the weight class’ bigger names.
“[I want to fight Sebastian] Fundora for sure, he has the WBC [world title],” Ortiz Jr. told Uncrowned and DAZN’s “Ariel x Ade” show on Tuesday. “I believe [Jermell] Charlo is a good fight. There’s a lot of people saying that he’s done, and then you’ve got people saying I can’t beat him. I feel like people would love to see that fight. I think that he’s a good fighter and I’d love the opportunity to fight him.
“As for [number] three, probably [IBF champion Bakhram] Murtazaliev.”
Although rumors have swirled in recent days about a potential Ortiz vs. Murtazaliev fight on a June card being planned by Turki Alalshikh, Ortiz denied that was the case.
“I learned about it on Twitter like everybody else,” Ortiz said of potential Murtazaliev negotiations. “I’m just like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’ I talked to my manager and I talked to my dad, just trying to get into the loop of things. As far as right now — because I heard it’s supposed to happen in June or something — well, my hands are not ready. I have a cut that I got in the [Madrimov] fight because of the head-butts — that is [also] not ready. So the chances of it happening are slim to none.”
While Ortiz vs. Murtazaliev won’t happen in June, Ortiz reiterated that he’s open to facing Murtazaliev in the future. When reports leaked of a potential fight between the pair, Ortiz took it upon himself to scour the comments beneath said reports and gauge the initial fan reaction to the matchup.
“I think that [Murtazaliev is] a good fighter as well, that’s a fight that everyone wants to see,” Ortiz said. “I was reading all the tweets, everyone was excited about that [fight]. I’m not one to shy away from a fight, I think that’s a very good fight as well.”
Many picked Ortiz to fall short against Madrimov, considering how difficult a fight Terence Crawford had with the Uzbek in 2024. Ortiz, however, impressed with how comfortably he dealt with Madrimov compared to Crawford — and simultaneously made his case for being the super welterweight division’s No. 1 ranked fighter.
“[I stuck] to the game plan, [I didn’t get] hit with many big shots — I would give myself a solid A,” Ortiz said of his performance. “Not an A + or A-, just a solid A.
“I think that is [a] top-three [best performance of mine]. I would say it’s right up there with the Mauricio Herrera fight because that fight — I think I had the same kind of calmness and poise in this fight as well. Against a very tough opponent, I stayed calm the whole time, and I was able to execute everything that we wanted to do.”
Ortiz scraped past Serhii Bohachuk in his prior bout before Madrimov, surviving two knockdowns to outpoint the Ukrainian via majority decision in their Fight of the Year candidate. Although Bohachuk was easily the toughest challenge of Ortiz’s career to date, many of Ortiz’s rivals in the top 10 likely watched that contest and came away from it believing they could get the better of Ortiz, as did Bohachuk at times.
Ortiz’s fight with former champion Madrimov was significantly different, though. His pressure and volume forced Madrimov to hold his feet and trade with the Texan at times, yet Madrimov consistently came in second pace in those exchanges due to Ortiz’s obvious edge in power.
“There were a lot of times when I was watching the video back,” he said, “and I was like, ‘There were so many times where they didn’t see the little jabs of you popping his head back or him throwing punches, and I was just catching them with my gloves.’ Not only was he moving a lot, but he didn’t throw a whole lot. He definitely didn’t throw as much as I did. While the rounds were fairly slow in the beginning, I didn’t think he really did [much to me]. I didn’t think the fight was as close as some of the scorecards had it.”
In the past few days, Turki Alalshikh, TKO Group Holdings — the parent company of WWE and UFC — and Saudi Arabia’s Sela announced a multi-year partnership to establish a new boxing promotion and league. The project has been the talk of the boxing world, with UFC CEO Dana White expressing his desire to see the sport revert to the one-belt system used in the UFC, among other drastic changes.
“It can be a good thing, I don’t know. I feel like this is like changing the whole sport of boxing, and I don’t know if I’m qualified enough to even have an opinion on that,” Ortiz said. “I just fight people, you know? We’ll see though, we’ll see how it goes. I understand the logic behind it, I really do. It’s just a huge change, so I just don’t know how that’ll impact the sport.”
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