For the second time in about 12 months, Grand Prairie native Vergil Ortiz will have to pull out of a major fight due to rhabdomyolysis. He was scheduled to fight Eimantas Stanionis for his WBA Regular title on April 29th. A win in that fight would put him in line to fight the WBA Super champ, Errol Spence of DeSoto. The April 9th bout with Stanionis was originally scheduled for March 18th. However, Stanionis had to postpone the bout due to an emergency appendectomy. The bout was rescheduled for April 29th and is now, being pushed back again. The North Texan took to Instagram to release a statement saying he "had a flare-up rhabdomyolysis and not feeling anywhere near myself." Ortiz went on to say he is "optimistic that this fight will still happen just on a later date." Golden Boy Promotions, who promotes Ortiz, and won the purse bid for the bout also released a statement saying, "Ortiz Jr is expected to make a full recovery and return to the ring later this year" and added that "More Information on the April 29th event will be announced shortly." Texas Boxing Scene reached out to Ortiz's manager Rick Mirigian, for comment and said that he had "no info yet" but would keep us posted.
Ortiz had to pull out of a fight with contender Michael McKinson last March due to the same condition. McKinson won that night when he outpointed Alex Martin, who was a last-minute substitution for Ortiz. McKinson finally met up with Ortiz in August of 2022 at the Dickie's Arena in Fort Worth. Ortiz was pushed into the deepest waters of his career, going past the seventh round for the first time. Ortiz finally stopped the elusive McKinson in the ninth round to extend his consecutive knockout streak to 19, moving his record to 19-0 (19).