Vergil Ortiz Jr. says he wants to see Errol Spence retire because he feels the combination of his car crash in 2019 and his loss to Terence Crawford has taken a lot out of him.
Errol hasn’t retired but his time out of the ring outs him in that category. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t announced his retirement. He’s not fighting, so he might as well retire. The former unified three-belt welterweight champion Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) hasn’t fought in two years since his ninth round knockout loss to Crawford on July 29, 2023.
Retirement Call
Being out of the ring that long after what the soon-to-be 35-year-old Spence has gone through in the last six years is a lot. Spence has had eye injuries and weight problems. He tends to get big between fights, which has taken its toll on him.
“I don’t think Errol should fight again. I say this as a fighter who really looked up to him being in the same gym. I think he’s done,” said Vergil Ortiz Jr. to Brian Campbell’s YouTube channel, saying that he thinks Errol Spence should retire. “I don’t want to see him fight again,I really don’t, just for his health concerns.
“He already had the car crash [on October 10, 2019 in Dallas, Texas], and he had a bad night against Crawford. If he’s made the money he’s needed, then he doesn’t need any more to survive and he can live comfortably, then just retire. I really don’t want to see him fight again as a friend.”
Spence has made a lot of money during his career. If that weren’t the case, he indeed would have returned to the ring by now out of necessity. Hungry fighters tend to stay busy. It’s the wealthy ones that sit inactive.
“I don’t think anyone was familiar with Muratazaliev, at least here in the States. So that was kind of the first time everyone had watched him. We all assumed that Tim [Tszyu] was going to do Tim’s thing. I was shocked,” said Vergil Jr about former WBO junior middleweight champion Tim Tszyu in the third round of a four-knockdown performance by IBF 154-lb champion Bakhram Murtazaliev on October 19th last year.
“I didn’t expect that at all. I was like, ‘This guy’s good. That just makes me all the more excited. It’s just another good fighter that I can test my skills against,” said Ortiz Jr.
Vergil Jr. is coming off a 12-round unanimous decision win over Israil Madrimov on February 22nd in Riyadh. After the fight, he’d said he wanted to fight for a world title. However, the two names that he mentioned, Terence Crawford and Sebastian Fundora, are out of reach for him.
The one guy he can fight, IBF champion Bakhram Murtazaliev, he doesn’t seem eager to fight. Indeed, in the interview above, Ortiz Jr. said he’d be interested in fighting Tim Tszyu next, despite him coming off a knockout loss to Murtazaliev.
He’d rather fight Tszyu with him having lost than the unbeaten Murtazaliev. Think about that a little. It shows you how much Ortiz Jr. respects Murtazaliev.
Last Updated on 02/27/2025
