{"id":313722,"date":"2025-08-03T05:22:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T05:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313722\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T05:22:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T05:22:12","slug":"vergil-ortiz-offers-backhanded-congratulations-to-xander-zayas-you-got-a-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313722\/","title":{"rendered":"Vergil Ortiz offers backhanded congratulations to Xander Zayas: \u2018You got a gift’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The beef between Vergil Ortiz Jr.<\/a> and Xander Zayas <\/a>continues to boil.
Zayas (22-0, 13 KOs) beat Jorge Garcia Perez by unanimous decision on Saturday for the vacant WBO junior middleweight title <\/a>and became the youngest male champion at 22. <\/p>\n

Zayas took aim at Ortiz throughout the buildup and aftermath of the fight. <\/p>\n

Ortiz (23-0, 21 KOs) offered a calculated response to his rival Friday. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst off, congratulations on your win and becoming a world champion,\u201d Ortiz wrote on social media. \u201cYou were eventually going to do it, so I\u2019m not surprised. But let\u2019s keep everything a hundred \u2014 you got a gift. My last two opponents were top 10 in this division. The opponent you just fought had a 33-4 record and barely scratched the top-15 mark. All facts here but try and dispute them if you want. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had won my world title against your opponent, they would be tearing me to shreds right now. It\u2019s OK for you though because you\u2019re young, there\u2019s not a whole lot expected out of you right now. We\u2019re at different levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fight against Antonio Orozco \u2014 his only loss was to a world champion \u2014back when I was 21 in 2019 was harder than your last fight, since you wanna talk about what we have done at our ages. The other key difference between your last fight and mine is that for some odd reason my fight against Israil Madrimov<\/a> \u2014 clearly the better fight in terms of skill and popularity \u2014 wasn\u2019t made into a world title fight for the vacant belt. It\u2019s almost like the vacant belt was being held for somebody. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can say all you want that I haven\u2019t achieved anything, but I\u2019ve definitely proved more than you have. I\u2019ve beaten several fighters who\u2019ve become world champions \u2026 Enjoy the belt while you have it.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Zayas\u2019 response was short and sweet: \u201cKeep all those excuses to yourself brother, talk to me when you become a world champion.” <\/p>\n

The conflict kicked into second gear as Ortiz\u2019s planned fight against Jaron Ennis<\/a> fell apart in December. Zayas indicated he accepted a last-minute offer only to see Ortiz take on the former world champion Madrimov.<\/p>\n

Ortiz decisively beat him by unanimous decision to retain his WBC interim 154-pound title, and had hand surgery after the fight. <\/p>\n

Zayas, meanwhile, appears headed toward a hometown title defense in Puerto Rico<\/a> later this year. <\/p>\n

Manouk Akopyan is The Ring\u2019s lead writer. Follow him on X and Instagram: @ManoukAkopyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The beef between Vergil Ortiz Jr. and Xander Zayas continues to boil.Zayas (22-0, 13 KOs) beat Jorge Garcia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,10188,10181,10187,10186,10179,4496,10182,10183,10184,10185,10180,10193,10192,10175,10173,10174,10190,10176,10172,10194,10189,79,10191,10171,10178,16,15,10177],"class_list":{"0":"post-313722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114963162376751570","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}