PLANT CITY, Florida – Former junior middleweight title challenger Erickson Lubin has chosen to bypass a title shot against IBF 154lbs champion Bakhram Murtazaliev in favor of a more lucrative clash with unbeaten WBC interim beltholder Vergil Ortiz Jnr. The DAZN-streamed bout looks set for November, likely the 8th, with Dickies Arena in Texas under consideration to host.
DAZN will formally announce the bout Wednesday. “The fans are in for a treat,” Lubin promised in a prepared statement. “This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. This fight is about redemption. I’m back – for everything.”
According to boxing news, eight days after Murtazaliev-Lubin received a purse bid deadline from the IBF to strike a deal, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions presented a package that will pay Lubin more than double to fight Ortiz, the 27-year-old who knocked out his first 21 foes.
The talks required a delay as Ortiz’s negotiating team waited out a Friday deadline for new WBO 154lbs champion Xander Zayas to extend a bout agreement.
But Zayas is promoted by Top Rank, which saw its broadcast deal with ESPN expire following his title victory over Mexico’s Jorge Garcia Perez July 26 at the Madison Square Garden Theater.
Zayas publicly posted a letter on X from Golden Boy President Eric Gomez to Top Rank executive Carl Moretti requesting some general deal points – a 50-50 purse split, with the fight being staged in Nevada or California by December – and Zayas wrote over the letter on social media that he wanted the bout in Puerto Rico.
“Don’t run away now. You’ve had three days to agree and we haven’t heard a thing from your side,” Ortiz, 23-0 (21 KOs), replied to Zayas on X.
Without a substantive offer in hand, Golden Boy moved on and revisited Lubin, whom they originally sought for an Ortiz bout in February.
Lubin was ultimately passed over then by recent WBA champion Madrimov.
Now 29, Lubin is more than three years removed from his April 2022 stoppage loss to current WBC 154lbs champion Sebastian Fundora.
Fourteen months later, Lubin returned to defeat Luis Arias before he upset Premier Boxing Champions prospect Jesus Ramos by unanimous decision in September 2023.
But then Lubin, 27-2 (19 KOs), went absent again – this time for 21 months – before taking an IBF elimination fight against obscure foe Ardreal Holmes that Garry Jonas, Lubin’s promoter, placed as a ProBoxTV main event on May 10. Lubin won in the 11th-round.
Not only will Lubin will earn significantly more for the Ortiz chance than if he’d have fought Murtazaliev, Jonas also believes that Lubin stands a significant chance of scoring the upset.
“We don’t consider Vergil Ortiz the boogeyman,” Jonas told BoxingScene, reminding that Ortiz was dropped twice by Serhii Bohachuk in their August 2024 bout and that his best win was likely against Uzbekistan’s Israil Madrimov. “I’m not sure that Madrimov is all that,” Jonas concluded. “And Ortiz isn’t knocking anyone [high caliber] out at 154.”
With Murtazaliev coming off a destructive third-round knockout of former WBO 154lbs champion Tim Tszyu in October, Jonas said that while he has full confidence in Lubin defeating the Russian, he had to look at the opponents through a business lens.
“If we lose to Bakhram, maybe it’s all over for us,” Jonas said while considering the difficulty of those recent long layoffs. “But if we lose to Ortiz, because everyone thinks he’s the boogeyman of the division, we can get more fights.”
Ortiz’s father, Vergil Snr, said he doesn’t want his son beholden to the IBF’s 10-pound, day-after-weigh-in rehydration limit for a Murtazaliev meeting. That leverage allowed Jonas to be demanding with Golden Boy over the request for an option for another fight with a possibly victorious Lubin. One option was accepted, with a sizable purse for Lubin that nearly doubles what he’ll make against Ortiz.
Jonas admitted he’s been emboldened by the “horseshoe” he feels he’s been carrying through an array of inspired showings by his fighters – Angelo Leo’s featherweight-title knockout of Luis Alberto Lopez, Lamont Roach Jnr’s draw with lightweight champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis in March and Ramon Cardenas’ knockdown of undisputed junior-featherweight champion Naoya Inoue in May.
“Here we go again,” Jonas said. “The horseshoe is real. ‘Hammer’s’ going to beat Ortiz.”
