By Dan Ambrose: Vergil Ortiz Jr has pulled out of his fight this Saturday against WBA ‘regular’ welterweight champion Eimantas Stanionis after fainting on Wednesday and needing to be taken to a hospital. As a result, the Stanionis vs. Ortiz Jr fight will be postponed, which makes it a third time.
It’s unclear if the 25-year-old Ortiz Jr’s medical problem was a result of his taking off weight to try and get down to the 147-lb limit for Saturday’s fight against Stanionis.
Some boxing fans believe Ortiz Jr, a big guy for the welterweight division, has outgrown the weight class, and the rapid loss of water weight to get to 147 is causing his problems.
If that is indeed the case, Vergil Jr will need to move up to 154, and I hope that’ll be an easier weight for him to make. Ortiz Jr had talked this week about wanting to stay at welterweight for another two years, but that doesn’t sound realistic.
If Vergil does go up to 154, he’ll be in a good position to make excellent money fighting these talented fighters:
– Errol Spence Jr
– Tim Tszyu
– Brian Mendoza
– Terence Crawford
– Erickson Lubin
– Bakhram Murtazaliev
– Xander Zayas
– Jermell Charlo
– Jesus Ramos
– Israil Madrimov
– Danny Garcia
– Sebastian Fundora
The good news, the Golden Boy card will still go ahead, with lightweight contender Floyd Schofield (14-0, 11 KOs) being moved to the headliner spot for his 10-round fight against Haskell Rhodes (28-4-1, 13 KOs).
“Stanionis manager Shelly Finkel told Yahoo Sports on Thursday that Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez told him that Ortiz had fainted and was taken to a local hospital. He was forced to pull out of the fight due to his health, the third time in 15 months that’s happened between the two,” said Kevin Iole to Yahoo Sports News.
It’s bad for Golden Boy Promotions, as they’ve lost Canelo Alvarez, and their replacement star Ryan Garcia just suffered a loss. He could potentially leave the company.
Vergil Jr was thought to be a rock-solid future star at 147 and the guy to carry the torch for Golden Boy. But it appears that Ortiz Jr is having problems making weight for the welterweight division, and he’s going to have to think about moving up to 154 if he doesn’t want to continue to have problems.
There’s no word yet about what WBA secondary welterweight champion Stanionis will do. He’s put a lot of time into trying to get the fight with Vergil Jr done, and it would be risky for him to continue to do so. Stanioni hasn’t fought since April 2022, and if he reschedules with Ortiz Jr, what happens if the Golden Boy star pulls out again?
You have to factor in the fights that Stanionis has been missing out on with his two previous postponements for the Ortiz Jr fight, and he would have made a lot of money. Instead, it’s been wasted time for him, and whether he should allow this to continue is questionable.
The World Boxing Association will need to be the one that decides whether to keep giving Ortiz Jr chances to fight Stanionis.