{"id":380806,"date":"2026-01-20T19:01:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T19:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/380806\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T19:01:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T19:01:23","slug":"gary-antuanne-russell-eyes-ortiz-fight-after-next-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/380806\/","title":{"rendered":"Gary Antuanne Russell Eyes Ortiz Fight After Next Wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russell, the WBA junior welterweight titleholder, is awaiting a first defense against mandatory challenger Andy Hiraoka. The bout has not yet been finalized. Russell and Hiraoka were previously scheduled to meet last November before the fight was canceled, leaving Russell without a confirmed date for his first defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI beat him. This was a tournament out in Georgia. I got a hold of him, but I would like to see him professionally,\u201d Russell said<\/a> of Ortiz. \u201cBut first, he\u2019s got to get through Keyshawn. I\u2019ve got to get through this guy, Andy Hiraoka.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell pushed back on the idea that a win over Ortiz would carry limited weight for Davis, describing Ortiz as a fighter who is regularly underestimated.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor y\u2019all to say that Keyshawn doesn\u2019t really have no weight if he was to beat this guy, that\u2019s a lie,\u201d Russell said. \u201cHe\u2019s a sleeper. This dude is a sleeper. He could fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Ortiz win would immediately change how he is positioned at 140 pounds, placing him closer to the title picture and directly into conversations with established belt holders.<\/p>\n

Russell\u2019s comments come days after he was placed fifth in The Ring\u2019s updated junior welterweight rankings released on January 15. Dalton Smith moved to the top spot following his knockout win over Subriel Matias, a decision that drew criticism from fans who questioned Russell\u2019s placement given his recent body of work.<\/p>\n

Russell still needs a date for his mandatory defense. Ortiz still has Keyshawn Davis in front of him.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

Tom Galm has covered the global boxing scene since 2014, specializing in heavyweight analysis, business trends, and fighter psychology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell, the WBA junior welterweight titleholder, is awaiting a first defense against mandatory challenger Andy Hiraoka. The bout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-380806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}