Bakhram Murtazaliev vs. Vergil Ortiz Jr.

Conferences are underway for a fight between the champion of average junior weights of the IBF, Bakhram Murtazaliev and Vergil Ortiz Jr., the negotiations are still underway, but they are “not close” on the financial side of the discussions.

Financial ditch

And Rafael announced the news On the Murtazaliev-Ortiz Jr. negotiations he says that money on Golden Boy Promotions / Vergil Ortiz Jr. Côté is not close. This is not surprising because Ortiz Jr. (23-0, 21 KB) is the best known fighter of the two.

If the fight is made, it will be interesting to see which approach takes Vergil Jr. because Murtzaliev is dangerous of one or the other hand, and it is not someone that he can be exploited as Ortiz Jr. tends to fight.

Bakhram (23-0, 17 kos) drew fans’ attention with his third round victory over the former WBO 154 LB champion Tim Tszyu On October 19 of last year at the Royal Caribe in Orlando, Florida. Murtazaiev dropped Tszyu three times in the second and once in the third to get the KO.

A courageous prosecution

Vergil Jr. had called the Sebastian Fundora and Terence Crawford champions recently but without luck. The realistic option for him is Murtazaliev, and it is courageous that he takes this path. This is the only choice, but there is no guarantee that Fundora or Crawford will ever fight it.

Ortiz Jr, 26, has just targeted a unanimous decision of twelve rounds against the former Junior WBA junior weight champion Israil Madrimov On the Undercard d’Artur Beterbiev against Dmitty Bivo 2 on February 22 in Riyadh. Vergil Jr. beat Madrimov in a more impressive way than Terence Crawford last summer on August 3.

Ortiz Jr. used the pressure to exhaust Madrimov and dominate him in the second half of the competition. This approach will be risky for Vergil Jr. to use against Murtazaliev because it is not going to move in the way Madrimov did. He will be held and will fight.

In Vergil’s fight before that, he beat the WBC acting champion, Serhii Bohachuk, by a majority decision of 12 rounds on August 10. This fight was much closer to Ortiz Jr. than his victory over Madrimov. However, he clearly won the two fights, but suffered a lot of punishment in the competitions.