The undefeated Vergil Ortiz Jr. will attempt to capture the super welterweight WBC interim world title on Saturday when he clashes with Serhii Bohachuk at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
Boxing fans around the world should expect fireworks. Here’s all the information you need to watch the fight.
- Date: August 10
- Time: 8pm ET
- Stream: DAZN
Ortiz Jr. holds a 21-0 record with 21 KOs, and Bohachuk of the Ukraine is 24-1 with 23 KOs. In addition to the high KO percentage for both fighters, Ortiz and Bohachuk’s face-to-face meetings have carried high tension throughout the fight week.
On Friday, during the final faceoff, Ortiz Jr. refused to break his stare-down with Bohachuk.
Bohachuk’s lone loss was a TKO defeat at the hands of Brandon Adams in 2021. Since the loss, he has won six fights in a row. Most recently, Bohachuk won a unanimous decision over Brian Mendoza to capture the interim title.
The win came on the undercard of the Tim Tszyu-Sebastian Fundora scrap in March.
Ortiz, promoted by Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy, has a machine behind him that could help propel him toward significant opportunities. Ortiz’s high finish rate could lead to even more fans, but activity has been an issue before this year.
The fight with Bohachuk will be Ortiz’s third fight in 2024 after not fighting at all in 2023, and he fought just once in 2022.
Ortiz had agreed to face Tszyu this month, but the fight was canceled as Tszyu was believed to need more time to recover after his war with Fundora.
It would have made sense for Bohachuk to face Fundora, considering the latter’s victory over Tsyzu earned him the WBC and WBO crowns in the same division.
Instead, Fundora moved to defend his title against Errol Spence Jr., but that has seemingly been pushed back. The winner of Ortiz-Bohachuk will put in their bid to fight Terence Crawford next, but that could be a tough sell for Crawford with other potentially more lucrative options on the table.
Crawford had his sights set on fighting Canelo Alvarez, but the Mexican icon, who is scheduled to defend his 168-pound titles against Edgar Berlanga on Sept. 14, doesn’t seem keen on fighting Bud.
If Crawford doesn’t elect to retire and continues to fight, he could look to a rematch with Spence, a fight with Ortiz, or a battle with Jaron “Boots” Ennis to further his claim to supremacy at 154 pounds.
The winner of Saturday’s Ortiz-Bohachuk fight will be in the mix of a suddenly interesting 154-pound division. Here is a look at the entire lineup of fights on the DAZN card which is by far the biggest boxing event on a slow weekend.
- Gabriela Fundora (13-0-0) vs. Daniela Asenjo (16-3-3) – IBF World Fly
- Cecilia Braekhus (37-2-1) vs. Maricela Cornejo (19-6-0) – WBC Interim World Super Welter
- Charles Conwell (19-0-0) vs. Khiary Gray (#160) – super welterweights
