Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions have high hopes for Vergil Ortiz Jr and his future in the sport. He delivered on those expectations against Juan Carlos Salgado on ESPN2.
Vergil Ortiz Jr (10-0, 10 KOs) seems to certainly have the power in his hands to be able to live up to the hype Golden Boy is starting to give him. Tonight he had his first main event on Golden Boy on ESPN against former titleholder Juan Carlos Salgado (27-9-1, 16 KOs). That sounds like a really intriguing test on paper for a 20 year old prospect in only his tenth professional bout, but it isn’t really. Salgado’s career has all but fallen off a cliff following losing his belt in 2013. Counting that fight and this loss, Salgado is now 1-8 in his last nine fights.
The young prospect started the fight off as about as well as he could, landing a left hook that clearly wobbled Salgado almost immediately. He didn’t get reckless and showed some poise with a measured follow up attack too. This resulted in a predictably one sided opener. Surprisingly Salgado did show some life in the second round. He was doing well to take care of the openings his much less experienced opponent was leaving downstairs and ripped the body. He had a case to be winning the round until he was hurt again with about thirty seconds left to fight before the bell. Ortiz had a nice follow up flurry too.
After potentially bothering Salgado with a shot early in the third, Ortiz did get overeager for the first time in the fight. The 20 year old smothered his own follow up work in his excitement. Maybe the fact that he had never been past the third round was in his head. He wouldn’t find his first fourth round on this night. Ortiz landed a picture perfect left hook downstairs that got an audible reaction out of me. Salgado retreated to the ropes and then bounced back, only to take the same exact monster body shot again a few seconds later. He collapsed into the fetal position in obvious pain and the fight was immediately waved off.
Vergil Ortiz Jr’s star keeps glowing brighter.
