By Aragon Garcia: Welterweights Vergil Ortiz Jr. and journeyman Samuel Vargas are now set to face each other on March 28 LIVE on DAZN at The Forum in Inglewood, California, according to @MikeCoppinger.
If the 21-year-old Ortiz Jr. (15-0, 15 KOs) gets through the fight without a loss or an injury, he’ll next be competing on Canelo Alvarez’s undercard on May 2 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Vergil Ortiz Jr. not much to gain fighting Vargas
This is arguably a step down in competition for Ortiz Jr. in facing Vargas. In Ortiz’s last three fights, he’s beaten these guys:
- Brad Solomon
- Antonio Orozco
- Mauricio Herrera
The 10-year pro Vargas (31-5-2, 14 KOs) has been around for a while, and has been in with a number of well known fighters. Unfortunately, Vargas has lost each time he’s stepped it up against good opposition. His best wins have come against Giuseppe Lauri, Ali Funeka and Jussi Koivula.
Vargas’ defeats have come against these fighters:
- Amir Khan
- Danny Garcia
- Luis Collazo
- Errol Spence Jr.
- Pablo Munguia
Spence stopped Vargas in the 4th round in 2015, whereas Danny Garcia defeated him by a 7th round TKO in 2016. Surprisingly, Vargas knocked Khan down in the 3rd round of their fight in 2018. Khan won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but Vargas gave him some problems early on with his power.
Can Ortiz Jr. stop Vargas faster than Spence did?
It’ll be interesting to see if Vargas does a better job of defeating Vargas than Spence did in 2015. Unfortunately for Ortiz, he probably won’t receive credit even if he does stop Vargas faster than Spence in 2015. Vargas is a little more shop worn at 30 than the 25-year-old that Spence beat back in 2015.
There’s very little question that Ortiz Jr. will defeat the 30-year-old Colombian Vargas. The real question is whether Ortiz Jr. can escape the fight without suffering an injury, which would make it impossible for him to fight on the Canelo card in May.
It’s important that Ortiz Jr. fight on that card, as it’ll be seen by a lot of boxing fans worldwide. Ortiz Jr. needs to start facing quality opposition though to help make some noise in the sport. Fighting the likes of Vargas won’t get the job done.
Sources: Vergil Ortiz and Samuel Vargas have agreed to terms for a welterweight fight March 28 at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif. The bout will be streamed by DAZN. If Ortiz wins as expected (and suffers no injuries), he could turn around and fight again May 2 on Canelo undercard
— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) February 11, 2020
Ortiz Jr. looks to be a sure thing future welterweight world champion, but his promoters at Golden Boy are taking it slow with him. Moreover, it’s probably not that easy for them to get the upper level welterweights to want to fight a hard puncher like Ortiz Jr. He’s got really heavy hands, and it’s no treat to take him on. The rival promoters are likely not going to let their fighters have anything to do with Ortiz Jr. until he becomes a world champion.