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Well, I'm very pleased to bring into the podcast this week. It is
the excellent undefeated welterweight contender Virgil Ortiz Junior. Virgil, Welcome to the show,
and thank you very much for doing this today. Hey, thanks for
having Yeah, it's my pleasure. We're here to talk about You've got a
very important fight. Let's just say it's been a long time coming, right,
You're gonna You're gonna challenge the WBA Regular welterweight champion Amantes Stanionis. It
is on July eighth on the Zone from the A ten T Center in San
Antonio, not too far from your stomping grounds in the Dallas area. A
little bit of a hometown crowd for you, I assume will be on hand.
The first thing I'd like to know, as I mentioned, this fight's
a long time coming. This fight was supposed to be on March eighteenth,
postponed because Stanionis suffered had had needed an append an appendeck to me, an
emergency appendeck to me, So the fight was postponed. Then when it was
rescheduled, of course, uh not that it's everybody knows at this point you
had a relapse of your rap though the blood disorder that was giving you problems
how to be postponed again and now here we are, m can you just
tell me just about your general thoughts about having to put off this significant fight,
you know multiple times. I mean, it's a big fight for both
of you guys. Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a huge fight for
both of us, and h you know my thoughts on that, it's just,
uh, at the end of the day, I'm just I'm glad it's
still happening. You know. It is a fight that I wanted to happen.
It was an opportunity that I wanted to pass up. You know,
I could have taken a kind of like a stay busy, get get back
better fight, um, but I was want to lose an opportunity to fight
for this belt, to fight against Stanny Owners and I really wanted to and
still want to fight against him. So, you know, they wanted me
to take another month off, but I was like, you know what,
I'm ready. I'm ready now. I feel it in my bones, like
I'm ready. So I just let's just do it, man. That's that's
what we're right now. So because of the postponents, everything that's happened,
you haven't fought since last August. He's going to be coming off a fight.
He hasn't had a fight since April of last year. Um, and
you fought four times in twenty nineteen, still on the rise at that point,
you know, knocking everybody out. And since twenty nineteen you've had a
total of four fights, so it's obviously been a much slower schedule for you.
Can you kind of just verbalize if if there is frustration about the lack
of activity, we you know, the postponents and just trying to be able
to gain some momentum, because every time you do fight, you score a
knockout, you usually look great doing it, and then it's a long way
till the next fight. Yeah, of course, you know, so it's,
uh the lack of activity, you know, it's it's it's frustrating,
you know, you know, you I get to chaining in and you know,
get to win, I have momentum behind me, just for it to
uh, just for me to lose the momentum and not fight again the next
year and you know, just in folve months. You know, it's it's
more frustrating, but we're trying to make the most out of everything. Um,
you know, we're overcoming every obstacle and uh you know, I hopefully
after this fight we can we can change that again and we can get the
same moral over again. So I must ask, how is your health now
after all the issues? My health is great. It's awesow to now.
Well, I'm really glad to hear that, because I mean, the first
thing, you got to take care of yourself as far as you know,
being a boxer is tough enough. But if you're not healthy going into the
fight, you know you're doomed. I saw some comments or hurt some comments
from you where you're in your issue in this relapse with rabdough was due to
you having long COVID and it not you know, it impacting your immune system
or whatever the issue was, and was making this, uh you know,
sort of exacerbating this problem that it occurred once before. Are you over long
COVID or do you still have symptoms of it? Do you have to do
anything different as far as you know, altering your training and you know,
to make sure it doesn't happen again, Like what have they told you about
that? How how do you deal with it? So I'll tell you,
Like how so you know after COVID. So my first fight after COVID was
Samuel Margins. And if you pay attention to to the post fight interview or
whatever, that's probably the interview probably happened like five minutes after like the fight
in the it or whatever. I was talseling and push and I literally could
not talk. And because I was, I was trying to breathe, like
I just I could not breathe. And uh, you know, ever since
that happened, Uh, notice in my training, like I was getting tired,
like in the first second round. I just it was it was.
It was a struggle. And uh, you know, leading up to the
other five Hooker, I got COVID again. Literally a month before the Hooker
fight, maybe like two three two three weeks before, I had a train
like that literally thought I was going to die. I'm not exaggerating. I'm
not exaggerating, Like, but you don't realize at this point that that's what
they turn along COVID. No, Okay, So now you have the Murray's
Hooker fight again. You look great in that fight, scored a knockout in
the seventh round. Yeah, and but to be honest, I didn't feel
that strong enough fight even in my last sparring. Um, you know,
they really didn't want me to fight, and I was just like, man
like, I just went through all this shit. I just I just had
COVID. I just spark during COVID. I just trained. I didn't look
horrible in sparring. You know, I'm always in that. I'm always gonna
keep some kind of you know, technical ability in there, you know,
because I do what I do. But I wasn't one hundred percent. I
wasn't ninety eighty. I was sort of like good sixty I would, I
would say, but I knew that I still had it in me to win.
And uh, you know I want against Race Hooker without my power being
there. You know, racist isn't that big. But I feel like I
was not moving him the way I should have. I felt like I should
have got him out of there and making maybe like before probably if I'm being
but you know, then we got the met Machine fight. I don't think
I looked too better in the met Machine fight. Um, but you know,
it's it was just a long time coming that my body was just not
recovering after that. Now, I wasn't giving it time to recover because my
body wasn't there, saying I didn't know that yet. So how did you
then find out that, in fact it was long COVID or attributed to the
COVID that you had had previously. So I always had my suspicions. But
I'm not a doctor, right, you know, I've always had my suspicions.
I knew something was up with my body because no one really knows my
body better than me. I know I'm feeling one hundred percent of the time,
I'm me being about to I'm not going to complain, So my coaches
don't Sometimes they don't know when I'm not a hundred percent because this is my
job not not to show weakness, you know. But recently we had to
go to Fresno and and visited doctor Bautista, the doctor that's been helping me
throughout this whole recovery process, and he said, yeah, it's do the
long COVID, and and I told him about it, and what when I
told him my stories and my experiences, he can confirmed the I'm like,
yeah, that's one hundred percent what it is. So that's That's how we
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Visit phone Watch dot Ie. All right, so after you had beaten Mean
Machine Kabalowskis, you were supposed to have the Mtiction fight that was postponed because
of your first incident with Rabdough, and then you got a rescheduled I guess
you felt better and you went into the mckinson fight finally in August of last
year. When you had that fight, did you feel like you would overcome
the long copd or was I giving you problems yet again? Like you meant?
It was for the Vargus Hooker and Mean Machine fights. So I definitely
didn't feel strong that fight. I feel like that was the worst I had
ever went into a fight. I think that that was the first fight where
I was sitting the mits in the locker room and there was no explosion.
I was just like, oh damn, like you know, and yeah,
my hands talks to mckinsen. He was a good fighter. It's I feel
like I'm lucky that it was against him, because he was He's not a
power puncher, He's not a relentinist fighter like that. So I feel like
I kind of got lucky that it wasn't someone else. You know, Well,
I'm looking at the roster of the fights that we've talked about. Samuel
Vargus has been like, maybe not a world champion, but he's been a
pretty decent contender and fought a lot of good opponents. Maurice Hooker is obviously
a very reputable fighter. He was a former world champion. Cavlowskis an Olympian.
Duve Crawford one of his toughest fights. You know, been in the
ring with a lot of good guys. A good welterweight contender. Mckinson,
like you mentioned, maybe not the you know, the strongest guy out there,
but he was undefeated when you fought him. So you're telling me,
basically, you're beating like solid quality opponents, if not not necessarily champions.
But you're beating good guys buy knockout, by the way, in dominating fashion
in terms of what the scorecards were reading at the time that you scored the
knockout and you're fighting them at like sixty percent. What does that say about
the type of fighter that you are and just the threshold you have for dealing
with these types of things. Yeah, I mean, I just what's that
one about? Mindus something? And I know I can do it. You
know, I don't want to make myself big headed, but if I'm put
in a situation where I'd either show myself or to everyone else, but mostly
to myself, that I can do something, then I'm going to do it.
Okay. Now, stanionis with all due respect to the other fighters that
I just mentioned, my opinion is that he would be on a higher level,
a better grade of opponent. Also undefeated, also was an Olympian,
you know, had that very grueling victory against Betiah to get this title.
What is your take on stanny Onis and what he brings to the table.
He showed a lot of heart, a lot of resilience when he won the
belt against Beatia in his last fight, and uh, you know had that
decorated amateur career. So I'm sure you've taken a look at him. Give
me your thoughts about your opponent that you're gonna face. No, he's He's
definitely a guy that I've had my on. I think that that he's a
kind of fighter that that that bringses you know, he's he's just one of
those fighters that the fantom to watch and uh, it was clear why he's
a He's a relatant spider and you know he can be dangerous too. So
when I look at this fight, I mean, we know that the Terrence
Crawford fight with Spence is coming up at the end of the July. They're
sort of like the generation right before you. I guess with Keith Thurman and
Danny Garcia, Sean Porter, even andre Berto Laman Peterson, a lot of
good fighters in there. I feel like you guys are maybe that that what's
kicking off the next era of welterweight boxing. Uh do you feel like that
is the case that that you guys are gonna once they're gonna lead the way
into this next group of one hundred and forty seven pounders. I believe.
So we're like the kind of like the new class. You know how you
there's high school classes were like the new class coming up, and uh,
we're we're gonna be ruling for a while too. Very good. I just
want to wrap it up with this, Virgil. I appreciate you doing this.
Uh how do you think the fight goes? And is it all important
for you to extend your knockout trick? You are nineteen o with nineteen knockouts,
You've you've knocked every man out that you've faced, So how do you
think this one goes? And I know you think you're gonna win, but
do you think you also extend that knockout a record? I guess you know
he's a he's a tough fighter. So I'm not gonna say that I am
I'm gonna knock him out because I truly don't know. He's a he's a
tough fighter. Uh. Will I take the opportunity if I see it?
You know, of course, as everyone else will. So really I can't.
This isn't even me trying to be humble. This is just a tough
fighter. Yeah, you know it's it's I truly don't know. Well,
I'll be very interest to watch it. I think That's one of the reasons
why it is a fascinating fight because nobody really know. I mean sometimes you
have a real feeling, you know, you think you know, but you
guys have both shown you can do a lot of different things in that ring.
So all I can say is best of lucky. And I know many
many boxing means are very anxious and excited to watch this one, and especially
after the delay. So I'm glad it's back on and I wish you the
best. Love Vergal, thank you very much for doing this. Hey,
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