Trainer Robert Garcia has confirmed he has undefeated WBO welterweight champion Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford 37-0 (28) on the radar for his hot prospect Vergil Ortiz Jr 17-0 (17).
The big-punching 23-year-old Texan is coming off a seventh-round knockout victory over former WBO junior welterweight champion Maurice Hooker 27-2-3 (18) last month.
Ideally, Garcia would like to see Ortiz Jr fight once more before taking on Crawford before the end of the year.
“I believe the easiest way to go would be the direction with Top Rank,” Garcia told FightHubTV. Golden Boy and Top Rank do work together and have done a lot of fights together, especially the last year, they did quite a few fights together and I think it’s probably the easiest way.
“I’m not gonna say we should go straight into Terence Crawford next but it’s a big possibility. But Top Rank also has a few other welterweights that might be a good idea before fight Crawford cause I think Crawford will probably go towards the end of the year, so by then we might have one or two fights more. We don’t want to keep Vergil sitting for the remainder of the year.
“After this fight I think he should do two fights — he hasn’t been very active so I want to keep him busy. I think one or two more before anything big… I would like to see him at least one more time before anything huge and I think the big fight will be Terence Crawford.
“PBC’s fighters are great, unbelievable fighters, but it’s a little more difficult. You don’t see that happening that often. I think Crawford will probably be the easiest fight to make.”
Garcia revealed his brother Mikey Garcia is back in the gym sparring and losing weight but added that despite his name being linked to Manny Pacquiao in the media, nothing had been signed yet.
“There has been a lot of rumours but still nothing signed, nothing official, no date, no nothing,” he said. “As soon as something is finalised I’m sure Mikey will let us know because as of right now Mikey’s training, Mikey’s lost a lot of weight already. He’s sparring, he’s getting ready. But nothing’s official yet and in boxing anything could happen.
“We could end up fighting somebody else, [Manny] Pacquiao could end up fighting somebody else — we don’t know. But the way it looks, from what I read, you read, everybody’s reading, it looks like the direction Pacquiao’s going but until it’s signed and contracts are signed and everything’s ready to go, we’ll be able to talk a little bit more.
“But right now he is training. I know that he wants to fight in May or June and if it’s against Pacquiao or not, he’ll be fighting. So if it’s not Pacquiao he will fight someone else and it will be sometime in late May or June.”
