After a few months of back and forth, it was recently announced that Vergil Ortiz is to fight Tim Tszyu and now Ortiz has broken his silence on the upcoming bout.
Tszyu is of course coming off the back of a rather surprising upset loss against Sebastian Fundora. Fundora was a last-minute replacement when original opponent Keith Thurman had to pull out of their scheduled bout with a bicep injury.
The bout marked the launch of boxing on Amazon Prime but ended badly for former world champion Tszyu who suffered a bad cut and had blood streaming down his face so was unable to see what was coming at him.
He surrendered his WBO super-welterweight belt in a contentious split-decision loss in Las Vegas last month. Although a rematch was talked about, that appears to have been shelved.
He also hoped to fight Terence Crawford, but after consolidating the welterweight division, the American boxing sensation is stepping up in weight class to face off against WBA super-welterweight champion Israil Madrimov.
Instead, Tszyu is taking on undefeated knockout specialist Ortiz Jr who is unbeaten in 20 fights, provided Ortiz comes through his fight this weekend against Puerto Rican Thomas Dulorme.
Speaking to 210 Boxing, Ortiz was asked what the difference is between liking and respecting an opponent or having a guy in front of you that you don’t really care about.
“It doesn’t matter. I respect him in a way I don’t know the guy, I’ve never met him before, we’ve had one interaction on Twitter, it’s not like we’re friends. It’s more that I respect him as a fighter. If we do fight it will bring the best out of each other, it’s like that, I respect you, so you’re going to get the best out of me.”
He was then asked what his father meant when he said this would be a ‘man’s fight.’
“A man’s fight is two fighters that not necessarily stand there and brawl, that doesn’t make you a man, a dumbass can do that, but a fighter that can stay in the pocket, fire is coming at them, and they’re returning back. We’re both strong, smart fighters it’s a fight you don’t want to miss.”
He was asked what he took from Tzysu’s last fight.
“He got a really bad cut. What I take away the main thing is he has heart. He’s not going to quit. That was a lot of blood coming out of his head, he couldn’t see but even then he wasn’t complaining about it. He fought through it.”
If this one comes off, it could be an all-action war.
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