PALM SPRINGS, California – Oscar De La Hoya responded vividly Friday to the breach-of-contract lawsuit filed hours earlier by his unbeaten 154lbs interim world titleholder Vergil Ortiz Jnr, scolding Ortiz's manager from interfering with the existing contract.
“Whoever’s going to interfere with our existing contract with Vergil Ortiz, we will take aggressive action against you,” De La Hoya in reference to Ortiz manager Rick Mirigian and the attorney who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Nevada, Gregory Smith.
“[Ortiz Jnr] is not a free agent. And we will prove that. You’re the problem in boxing.”
The dispute centers around the inability thus far to strike a deal for the 27-year-old Ortiz, 24-0 (22 KOs), to meet recent unified welterweight champion Jaron “Boots” Ennis, the Philadelphia fighter promoted by Eddie Hearn.
Although DAZN has streamed the critical fights of both Ortiz and Ennis, 28, as each has risen to prominence as pound-for-pound talents, attorney Smith claimed in his lawsuit that DAZN’s contract with Golden Boy expired December 31, freeing Ortiz to flee Golden Boy.
Smith wrote in the lawsuit that Golden Boy is claiming negotiations continue to extend the deal with DAZN through 2027.
De La Hoya said on his Instagram Reel on Friday that his Golden Boy Promotions sent a letter to Mirigian on Thursday “demanding that he stops interfering in the ‘Boots’-Vergil negotiations. And of course, this morning we wake up and here’s a lawsuit from Vergil Ortiz claiming he wants out of his contract.
“This is the same Vergil who told Ring Magazine two months ago that he couldn’t be happier at Golden Boy. So what happened since then?”
Ortiz, indeed, told De La Hoya and Golden Boy President Eric Gomez after his crushing second-round knockout of former title challenger Erickson Lubin in Texas in November that he “has their back” as negotiations were to commence with Ennis.
Ennis and Hearn sat ringside for that bout, and after Ennis pointed to his watch, indicating it’s time for the two prime performers to meet, they met face-to-face in the ring on DAZN and discussed the showdown.
Friday, De La Hoya claimed, “Vergil’s team hired a new attorney who is also Canelo [Alvarez’s] attorney – the same guy who sued to get Canelo out of his Golden Boy contract [in 2020]. Does that sound fishy to you?”
Yet Smith has worked for Ortiz since 2024, when he helped craft the three-year Ortiz-Golden Boy contract with Gomez and a Golden Boy attorney.
In it, Smith added language that De La Hoya was prohibited from saying things publicly to compromise relationships that would harm Ortiz’s effort to maximize his purse money.
An official connected to the Ortiz lawsuit told BoxingScene on Friday they are “confident in our position.”
By openly criticizing Hearn and the way Saudi Arabia financier Turki Alalshikh is operating by substantially funding the new Zuffa Boxing venture that wants to award its own belts, stop working with sanctioning bodies and eliminate federal regulations protecting boxers’ financial interests, Mirigian has claimed the money available for Ortiz-Ennis has been dampened.
“If the Saudis want to buy the fight, trust me, they will buy it,” De La Hoya said. “I just finished making a deal with them for Ryan Garcia versus Mario Barrios next month [February 21 in Las Vegas on DAZN]. Look, they don’t choose their favorite promoter. They choose the best fights to put on.
“This is all Rick Mirigian’s agenda. I was just trying to make more money for my fighter, a [60-40 split favoring Ortiz]. I believe he deserves it. And that’s the reason you want out of your contract?
“It just proves your agenda, Rick. Vergil and his father are really nice people who don’t deserve to be in the middle of Rick’s bullshit. Vergil just wants to fight and not deal with the drama, because I know him. He’s a fighter. It’s unfortunate that anyone can choose to file a lawsuit in America without basis or facts – simply for the optics. That’s what this is.”
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
