The calendar year’s most significant junior middleweight bout lands in Fort Worth on Saturday as Vergil Ortiz Jr. (23-0, 21 KOs) meets Erickson “The Hammer” Lubin (27-2, 19 KOs) at Dickies Arena with Jaron “Boots” Ennis (35-0, 31 KOs) and promoter Eddie Hearn watching from ringside.
Ortiz and Ennis have called for each other for more than a year, but momentum repeatedly stalled. With Ennis seated close enough to feel the thud, a convincing Ortiz win could turn long-talked aspirations into immediate negotiations.
Ortiz’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya leaned into the theater of it all:
“I welcome Eddie and Boots to see who the best 154-pound fighter is… I’m just afraid that when Boots sees Vergil in person, he’s going to shy away from the fight… We want the fight, one thousand percent.