Vergil Ortiz Jr. may have a fancy puzzle to unravel in his combat towards the previous WBA Junior middleweight champion this Saturday, February twenty second, on Turki Al-Sheikh’s card in Riyadh. Madrimov (10-1-1, 7 KOs) gained loads of expertise from his current combat towards Terence Crawford, pushing the growing older fighter to his bodily limits in Los Angeles in a razor-close defeat.
(Credit score: Melina Pizano/Matchroom)
Madrimov Too Expert?
Ortiz Jr. (22-0, 21 KOs) should present extra expertise if he needs to carry onto his WBC interim 154-lb title towards the extra technically gifted and highly effective Madrimov. What may work towards Vergil Jr, 26, is he’s coming off a grueling combat towards Serhii Bohachuk on August tenth final 12 months, and now he’s leaping straight into an much more difficult match towards Madrimov.
Though we noticed Vergil Jr. shortly work out and destroy the slick British boxer Michael McKinson in 2022, Madrimov is on a special stage than that man. He has measurement, expertise, and Golovkin-like energy, making him a formidable opponent.
Ortiz Jr. can’t simply stroll ‘Little GGG’ Madrimov down the best way he did the light-hitting, frail McKinson and rely on knocking him out. If he fights like that towards Madrimov, he’ll get dropped repeatedly, as he did in his questionable 12-round majority choice win towards Bohahuk. Let’s be sincere. That was a loss for Vergil Ortiz Jr, however he was gifted a call by the Nevada judges. He was dropped twice by Bohachuk and appeared to lose seven rounds, which ought to have made it a transparent victory for the Ukrainian.
What made the entire fiasco even worse was Ortiz Jr. selecting to not give him a rematch. That mentioned so much about him. With Saturday’s Ortiz-Madrimov combat being staged in Riyadh, Vergil Jr. can’t rely on the judges to bail him out if the combat is shut. He’s going to wish to combat so much higher than he did towards Bohachuk, and he’s dealing with a harder-to-hit fighter with higher single-punch energy.
Ortiz Jr. Wants Plan B
Should you noticed what Madrimov did to Crawford’s face, you simply know that the easy-to-hit Vergil Jr. goes to absorb loads of punishment on this contest if he fights the best way he usually does. The primitive type that Ortiz Jr. has gotten away with throughout his profession will make him straightforward prey for Madrimov, who dominates these kinds of fighters.
Vergil Jr. would have been compelled to alter his type a very long time in the past if he’d fought higher opposition and been competing at 154 because the starting of his profession. Ortiz Jr. goes to observe his outdated playbook of making an attempt to out-punch Madrimov, but when that doesn’t work, he’ll want a plan B technique.
🔸🔸🔶 Israil Madrimov 🔶🔸🔸
Madrimov is the previous WBA JMW Champ, and his solely loss/misplaced his strap was to none apart from Bud Crawford.
Going into that combat, Crawford was using one heck of a TKO/KO streak, and Madrimov managed to go the complete twelfth rds with Bud.
Ortiz,… https://t.co/nbj9ONpnFo pic.twitter.com/FJrvWpssk0
— About that Life (@aboutthatlifeko) February 16, 2025
Final Up to date on 02/16/2025
