NEW YORK \u2013 Two of boxing\u2019s brightest talents hail from the same big state and same gym, and as they greeted each other Wednesday at a sponsored event to promote Friday\u2019s Times Square card, unbeaten junior-middleweight Vergil Ortiz and junior-featherweight champion Jesse \u201cBam\u201d Rodriguez discussed their next steps.<\/p>\n
Ortiz, 23-0 (21 KOs), from Grand Prairie, Texas, is coming off right hand surgery to correct damage suffered in his impressive February 22 victory by decision over former WBA champion Israil Madrimov, and said he expects to return to action by the late summer.<\/p>\n
Although he took another rugged opponent before that, in surviving two knockdowns to defeat Serhii Bohachuk in August, Ortiz is likely headed to another immense showdown, with BoxingScene learning that former undisputed 154lbs champion Jermell Charlo is a possible foe.<\/p>\n
Charlo, 35-2-1 (19 KOs), hasn\u2019t fought since his September 2023 defeat to Canelo Alvarez.<\/p>\n
For now, Ortiz, 27, has seen his division shaken by unified champion Sebastian Fundora\u2019s decision this week to keep his WBC belt and fight Tim Tszyu in a rematch of their bloody bout last year while effectively turning over the WBO belt for top-ranked Xander Zayas to meet second-ranked Jorge Garcia Perez later this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still all the same. I would like to fight everyone, regardless,\u201d WBC interim champion Ortiz said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who has the belt or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were in line to fight Tszyu, and now he\u2019s enacted his rematch clause, which is fine. As far as Xander, that\u2019s also a good fight to be made if he wins. He does have a tough opponent in Perez [who this month defeated Charles Conwell]. We\u2019ll just have to see how all it plays out, but we have our own schedule and I\u2019ve been informed of some very good things.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Corona Premier event, Ortiz said his recovery will be tested by the threshold of, \u201cas long as I can start hitting things and not re-injure myself, it shouldn\u2019t be too much of a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ortiz previously rejected a Zayas overture to fight to accept a more lucrative purse in Saudi Arabia against Madrimov, but he says he\u2019s happy to eventually pursue the bout in what would be a renewal of the Mexico versus Puerto Rico series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a lot of people love that rivalry,\u201d Ortiz said. \u201cI\u2019ll stay at 154, but if opportunity exists at 160lbs, I\u2019ll go there, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the Times Square card, he said, \u201cThis is history, and I\u2019m excited to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez, 21-0 (14 KOs), from San Antonio, will enter the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy later this month to launch his training camp for his July 19 unification bout in Frisco, Texas, against South Africa\u2019s WBO champion Phumelela Cafu, 11-0-3 (8 KOs).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great fight. Cafu\u2019s coming off a huge upset of [Kosei] Tanaka, so I know he\u2019s going to come in very motivated to do the same against me, but I\u2019m a different fighter than Tanaka, so he\u2019s going to see that on July 19,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cI\u2019m fighting only four hours from San Antonio, so I know my people will show up. My following has grown a lot since I last fought in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 Two of boxing\u2019s brightest talents hail from the same big state and same gym, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,34015,79,16,15,34014],"class_list":{"0":"post-67141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-jesse-rodriguez","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-vergil-ortiz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114435647529684166","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67141","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=67141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}