Vergil Ortiz proved he was a 147-year-old player, but is he ready for Terence Crawford?

Saturday was a declarative day in the world of boxing. Vergil Ortiz proved he could hold on with a consolidated veteran and former world title to Maurice Hooker and continue to show off the skills and power that have made him one of the brightest young stars in boxing.

With a TKO in round 7, Ortiz got into serious contention for the title and pronounced Terence Crawford’s name in his interviews in the post-fight media.

“This win gives me more confidence,” Ortiz said after the fight. “I believe in myself even more than ever that I’m ready to win a world title. I’d love the chance to fight Terence Crawford. If I had a chance, I’d like to. I don’t care if I’m ready or not; I want this one. fight “.

Whether or not Ortiz is ready for ESPN’s No. 1 fighter per pound is a matter of debate, but Ortiz’s results so far in his career are impressive. With 17 qualifiers in 17 fights, having never fought after the seventh round, his ambitions are clear.

But Ortiz wasn’t the only big winner on Saturday. Lawrence Okolie won a world weightlifting title in his 16th professional wrestling, sending a former champion to Krzystof Glowacki. And after more than 500 days out of the ring, Artur Beterbiev continued to win in a successful defense of his WBC and IBF world titles, raising his record to 16-0, with 16 KOs.

So what do these three victories mean? Ben Baby and Nick Parkinson break it all.

Baby: Vergil Ortiz isn’t quite ready for Terence Crawford, but he could be close

“Vergil is young and promising,” Maurice Hooker said shortly after his loss Saturday to Ortiz. “But there are levels for that. It’s good. But he’s not ready for Terence Crawford. To be ready, he just has to keep building. Someday he’ll be world champion.”

I have to agree with Hooker here: Ortiz is good and will one day be world champion, but maybe he won’t be ready for Crawford yet. Hooker touched Ortiz often enough to leave a mark and was able to damage the 22-year-old as he proved that, even at a loss, he remains a very solid and entertaining welterweight. Give credit to Ortiz for making the adjustment in the fight to go to the body, but beating someone of Crawford’s caliber requires a very special performance.

Even if this fight isn’t necessarily advisable in the short term, there’s a way for Ortiz to get to Crawford in early 2022. If the boxing policy can be resolved, Ortiz is ready for some of the heavyweights of the Premier umbrella. Champions Champions. Ortiz wants to fight for the title in 2021, and who will say he’s not ready for current WBA world champion Yordenis Ugas, who has won three in a row after losing to Shawn Porter in March 2019. If Ortiz can win this fight and maybe knocking down someone like Danny Garcia or even a Josesito Lopez, should be more than prepared (and economically viable enough) for Crawford to seriously entertain the thought of a fight.

Also, let’s not forget that at some point, Crawford has to start facing bigger names. The boxing world can talk about Errol Spence Jr.’s elusive fight as hard as they want, but here and now Crawford desperately needs a fight against Shawn Porter if he hopes to maximize his professional gains. Ortiz is gaining credibility in a hurry, and if there is a boxer with a name who is willing to step in and fight Crawford, he is not in a position to say no to a fight that makes sense. Crawford is also too good and too talented not to retire with some head-to-head victories against some big names who earn him some good pay days.

If the opportunity is too great for both fighters to let go, there is no reason for it not to happen.

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Parkinson: Beterbiev dominated and got some necessary rounds. What should be next?

At 36 and with such a friendly style for fans, Beterbiev needs the big fights and prominence without further ado. After 519 days between fights, Beterbiev proved he had not lost any of his final power in a stoppage victory over Adam Deines on Saturday in the 10th round. He keeps Beterbiev, who holds the WBC and IBF world titles, as the No. 1 fighter in the light heavyweight division, and it looks likely he could fight for unification later this year.

Perhaps the most fans want to see (and want to see for a while) is Beterbiev against his Russian Dmitry Bivol (17-0, 11 KOs), who defends his WBA version of the world title against British light Craig Richards, a heavyweight, May 1st.

But another fight to unify the easiest title to do is Beterbiev against the winner of the fight for the vacant WBO title among New Yorker Joe Smith Jr. (26-3, 21 KOs) and Russian Maxim Vlasov (45-3, 26 KOs) on April 10 Top Rank promotes both Smith and Beterbiev, making it more likely that this fight will presume that Smith, noted for Buffalo two years ago, surpasses Vlasov.

Another Russian, Sergey Kovalev (34-4-1, 29 KOs), 37, once feared world champion and No. 1 in the division, is not the strength he had, has problems outside the sport and does not was able to take a synthetic testosterone drug test in January. This fight seems unlikely for Beterbiev, but former champion Jean Pascal (35-6-1), 38, is another big possibility, as both are based in Canada. The chances of this last fight occurring in the next twelve months are also quite strong: Pascal is number 1 on the WBC.

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Parkinson: What’s Lawrence Okolie’s ceiling after winning his first world title?

After winning his first world title in his 16th fight, Okolie’s time in the cruising weight division is likely to be limited. He will most likely fight as a heavyweight when he comes out in his twentieth professional fight. Okolie’s performance as a heavyweight is a different matter, but after Saturday’s impressive win over Kzystof Glowacki to pick up the WBO belt, the impressive world cruiserweight title, he hopes the Londoner will move quickly towards the unification of world cruise weight titles.

Okolie has become a much more polished boxer in the last two years and has always had one-shot knockout power, as evidenced by Saturday’s sixth-round Glowacki knockout with his right hand on his jaw. The toughest tests are lurking against Mairis Briedis (27-1, 19 KOs), IBF world champion, and Latvia, and Ilunga Makabu, WBC starter (28-2, 25 KOs), from the Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Cruiserweight is not as competitive as divisions above or below it, and Okolie has the potential to become the world’s No. 1 cruiserweight in its next fight if it makes the fight against the Breidis a reality. With Oleksandr Usyk now in heavyweight, after his own successful unification of the four major world titles, Okolie may emerge as the next unified world division champion.

“It’s so hard to prepare, it’s so big, it’s so imposing,” Tony Bellew (30-3-1, 20 KOs), WBC cruiserweight champion from 2016 to 2018, said of Okolie.