Vergil Ortiz Jr. s emotional style can backfire vs. Lubin

Erickson Lubin says he noticed how Vergil Ortiz Jr. tends to get “emotional” in his fights when he gets hit. He comes immediately, throws “crazy” shots, tries to get them back.

Next month it could be Vergil Jr. (23-0, 21 KOs) catches up when he defends his WBC interim junior middleweight title against boxer-puncher Lubin (27-2, 19 KOs) on Nov. 8 at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. The event will be shown on DAZN.

The wild reaction

“A more ferocious mindset. I feel like Vergil gets a little emotional when he fights. You get a few punches in on him, and he starts shaking his head and biting his lip,” Erickson Lubin said. MillCity Boxing about how Vergil Ortiz Jr. getting emotional after being beaten.

Ortiz Jr., 27, isn’t going to change his boxing DNA at this point in his career by staying calm and keeping his head together after being nailed hard. He is always going to fight like a wild man. If that doesn’t catch up to him against Erickson, it has a good chance of happening when he fights Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis.

“He wants to get it back. He starts throwing some crazy s*** back at you. They have to make this fight for the title, and let Fundora be champion in recess,” Erickson said in response to WBC junior middleweight champion Sebastian Fundora postponing his fight against Keith Thurman due to a hand injury.

Vergil Jr. has always fought with emotion throughout his career, and it has worked for him so far. It also caused him to dish out a lot of punishment by going straight at his opponents. We saw this in his fights against Serhii Bohachuk and Israil Madrimov. Ortiz Jr. looked like he came out of a war zone by the end of the fight.

The WBC title question

It would make sense for the WBC to put their 154-lb title on the line for the Vergil vs. Lubin fight. However, the sanctioning body should have it on the line for the Fundora-Thurman clash as it is on Amazon Prime Video PPV. This is the bigger fight. The WBC would shoot themselves in the foot by giving Fundora the champion in recess tag.

“I’m leaning towards Fundora. No disrespect to Keith, but a little inactivity. A little older now,” says Lubin.

If you took a close look at Thurman’s last fight, which came earlier this year on March 12 after another three-year layoff against Australian Brock Jarvis, he is not the same fighter.

The only thing he has left is to move and throw a rare single shot. His punch output has dropped to next to nothing, and he seems incapable of standing still for a firefight. That approach isn’t going to work against Fundora.

By Sean Jones – Senior boxing writer, covering the sport since 2016.