{"id":95548,"date":"2025-08-27T04:47:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T04:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/95548\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T04:47:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T04:47:06","slug":"vergil-ortiz-jr-blasts-wbo-champion-xander-zayas-claiming-he-was-gifted-a-title-while-he-fought-the-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/95548\/","title":{"rendered":"Vergil Ortiz Jr. Blasts WBO Champion Xander Zayas, Claiming He Was Gifted A Title While He Fought The Best"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vergil Ortiz Jr. fired back on social media at WBO junior middleweight champion Xander Zayas after being labeled and dismissed as a \u201c27-year-old prospect.\u201d Ortiz Jr. (23-0, 21 KOs) reacted by saying he\u2019s \u201cfought top competition compared to a champion, Zayas, who was \u2018gifted a title and has fought nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Xander (22-0, 13 KOs) told Ring Magazine why he felt he didn\u2019t need to fight Vergil Jr, saying that he\u2019d been told in the past, \u201cTalk to me when you become a champion.\u201d He says now that he\u2019s the WBO 154-lb belt-holder, he\u2019s going to say the same thing to WBC interim junior middleweight Ortiz Jr., who has yet to win a world title.<\/p>\n<p>A \u2018Gifted\u2019 Champion\u2019s Path<\/p>\n<p>Top Rank used their expertise to steer the 22-year-old Puerto Rico-born Xander Zayas into the WBO title with their matchmaking, lining up first a title eliminator against little-known Slawa Spomer earlier this year on February 14th, and then into a fight against #2 Jorge Garcia Perez for the vacant WBO junior middleweight title on July 26th. Zayas won both fights to become the new WBO champion.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Prospect that has actually fought top competition &gt; champion that was gifted a title that has fought nobody <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Qs7Wlmsm1s\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/Qs7Wlmsm1s<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Vergil Ortiz Jr. (@VergilOrtiz) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VergilOrtiz\/status\/1960505112561951109?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 27, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The \u201cgifted\u201d remark by Vergil Jr. reflects the view that some people on social media have that Top Rank maneuvered Zayas into his WBO title. Xander didn\u2019t have to fight any of these fighters to win his belt:<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Bakhram Murtazaliev<br \/>\u2013 Israil Madrimov<br \/>\u2013 Serhii Bohachuk<br \/>\u2013 Sebastian Fundora<br \/>\u2013 Abass Baraou<br \/>\u2013 Erickson Lubin<br \/>\u2013 Jaron Ennis<\/p>\n<p>Ortiz Jr.\u2019s Gauntlet of Opponents<\/p>\n<p>Fans noted that Zayas didn\u2019t have to fight any of the talented fighters in the 154-pound division to win his WBO belt, unlike Vergil Ortiz Jr., who did in his last two fights against Israil Madrimov and Serhii Bohachuk.<\/p>\n<p>Ortiz Jr. has run the gauntlet, going up against them, and now he\u2019s facing #1 IBF and #3 WBO-ranked Erickson Lubin on November 8th in Fort Worth, Texas.<\/p>\n<p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.boxingnews24.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boxing News 24<\/a> \u00bb Vergil Ortiz Jr. Blasts WBO Champion Xander Zayas, Claiming He Was Gifted a Title While He Fought the Best<\/p>\n<p>Last Updated on 08\/26\/2025 \t<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vergil Ortiz Jr. fired back on social media at WBO junior middleweight champion Xander Zayas after being labeled&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[18061,2560,18062,18059,6573,18060,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-95548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-anb-arena","9":"tag-boxing","10":"tag-fight-niight","11":"tag-mark-robinson","12":"tag-matchroom-boxing","13":"tag-riyadh-season","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95548","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=95548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}