Vergil Ortiz Wanting Terence Crawford Fight Too

It was a wild affair in unbeaten Texan Welterweight Vergil Ortiz’s latest KO win Saturday night in Frisco, TX. However, it was also an 18th straight KO to start the 23 year old’s career. And now, he and his promoter, Oscar De Hoya have become the latest to urge WBO World Welterweight Champ, Terence Crawford to fight Ortiz next.

First, Ortiz shook off being rocked early by veteran Egidijus “Mean Machine” Kavaliauskas in their Saturday night Golden Boy Promotions Main Event. And, then proceeded to knock Kavaliauskas down not just once, but four times total, in his 8th round TKO.

Kavaliauskas stunned Ortiz with a hard right hand followed by a flurry of punches (some landing-some not) midway through the second round that had the loud, partisan fans at the practice facility home of the Dallas Cowboys silenced for a short time.

However, being urged on by those fans and taking advantage of his stronger punching power, Ortiz eventually dropped the 33 year old Kavaliauskas to the seat of his pants with a straight counter left hook. Throughout the rest of the bout, Ortiz landed sharp let rights with left hooks behind them. And while Kavaliauskas did occasionally catch him with a hard right of his own, eventually, Ortiz overwhelmed him in the eighth round.

That’s when he scored first with a single body shot left for a knockdown and followed it up with a series of right hands stalking Kavaliauskas followed by another left to the body. A quick one-two from the prized Golden Boy star and down was the Lithuanian, again. 10 seconds later he was down for a third time in the round by a quick combo punctuated by hard left hook flush on the face for a third knockdown in the same round.

Referee Lawrence Cole let the bout go on, but with seconds remaining before the bell, Oritz put together a lighting flurry that finished with a hard left and Kavaliauskas was down for the 4th and final time in the same round. Thus, another impressive KO for Ortiz.

When it was all done, Ortiz (and De La Hoya) turned their attention to the 37-0 Crawford, who between the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic and his dispute with his own promoter Bob Arum, has been in the ring once in the last 20 months.

De La Hoya, who’s in training for his own comeback bout next month, took to social media later Saturday night to say that a possible bout at massive AT&T Stadium would be just find them,

@VergilOrtiz vs @terencecrawford @dallascowboys stadium anyone???

— Oscar De La Hoya (@OscarDeLaHoya) August 15, 2021

However, the seeming always brooding these days Crawford, who beat Kavaliauskas himself by 9th round TKO in December of of 2019, didn’t think much of the suggestion,

They love throwing my name around. I love y’all too.😊 congratulations on the win @VergilOrtiz

— Terence Crawford (@terencecrawford) August 15, 2021

Sure, Ortiz challenging Crawford would be an attractive fight, and maybe Ortiz isn’t ready for one of the premier lower weight fighters in the world. Then again, he’s now kayoed two veteran contenders in the last five months, including stopping for World Jr. Welterweight Champ, Maurice Hooker, back in March.

So, the argument can be made that he’s ready for a challenge now.

Still, Crawford has to decide if he will sign-up to fight former WBC 147 lb. champ Shawn Porter, who very much wants to challenge him too, later this year.

Or will he let his Top Rank deal expire to make him a free agent to make a deal like the potential Ortiz one.

We will see soon.