In the biggest win of his young career, Vergil Ortiz Jr (17-0, 17 KOs) battered and stopped Maurice Hooker (27-2-3, 18 KOs) by a seventh round knockout in their DAZN streamed fight on Saturday night at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
With the win, Ortiz captured the WBO International welterweight title.
Vergil was like a howitzer with the way he shelled Hooker to pieces with power shots until he dropped to his knees in the 36 seconds into the seventh round and was done. Referee Laurence Cole then stopped the fight.
Hooker also was down the sixth from a big right hand to the head from the 22-year-old Ortiz Jr. Interestingly, Hooker came out quickly in the seventh round to engage Ortiz at center ring.
The idea by Hooker was obviously to show Ortiz that he wasn’t still hurt from the previous round, but he didn’t last long, unfortunately.
That ploy turned out to be useless, as Hooker hit the deck in the first 36 seconds of the round, holding his right arm to indicate that he’d hurt it.
Boxing fans at ringside weren’t sympathetic to Hooker when he revealed to them that he’d hurt his arm in the seventh. In response to the boos, Hooker told the fans “f*** you.” At that point, DAZN wisely ended the interview.
It was clearly the hardest fight of Ortiz’s career, as he was marked up around the face, looking worse than Hooker.
That was the surprising thing because Ortiz landed a lot of massive headshots on Hooker, and you think that his eyes, nose, and face would have been cut or swelled, but he didn’t look bad considering how many punches he’d taken.
The tide of the fight turned in the fifth round when the 22-year-old Ortiz started focusing his punches on the body of Hooker.
That’s when Ortiz took over the match entirely. It was a wise move on Ortiz’s part to start focusing on the body of Hooker because he stung him with a shot to the midsection in the fourth.
Hooker did a good job of disguising that he’d been affected by a body shot, but Ortiz’s corner didn’t miss it because, in the fifth, he changed his game plan. He went from throwing punches upstairs to throwing body shots, and Hooker couldn’t take it.
After the fight, Ortiz let WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford, who was at ringside in the audience, know that he’d like to fight him if possible. Crawford shook his head, as if to say, ‘No, you’re not going to get a title shot.’
When Hooker was interviewed, he said Vergil isn’t ready to take on Crawford, and DAZN host Sergio Mora agreed with him.