Grand Prairie native Vergil Ortiz was scheduled to fight Eimantas Stanionis of Lithuania on March 18th for the WBA "Regular" Welterweight title. That fight will be postponed. The Lithuanian had an appendectomy Friday in Lithuania. Stanionis promoter Richard Schaefer has been in communication with Golden Boy, who represents Ortiz and won the Purse bid for the fight. Schaefer said, "We communicated to Golden Boy, who is going to look at available dates for the second half of April... He [ Stanionis] needs to follow doctor's orders, and he will be ready to go.
So the fight is not off for good and will only be postponed a few weeks. Additional good news for North Texas area fight fans the fight is still expected to be held in the DFW area. At the time of the postponement, no venue was nailed down. However, the bout is still expected to be held in the area.
Golden Boy won the bid last year with a bid of $2.3 million. According to WBA guidelines, Ortiz would earn a 25% split or roughly $575,000 with $1.75 million going to Stanionis, the champion. Multiple sources have reported that Golden Boy will be chipping in more money for Ortiz who is obviously a much bigger star in Texas.
Ortiz last fought in August at the Dickie's Arena in Fort Worth and scored a ninth-round TKO over Michael McKinson, of Britain to run his record to a perfect 19-0, with all 19 wins coming by way of stoppage. Stanionis sports a 14-0 (9) record and also had his last fight in the DFW Metroplex. He outpointed Radzhab Butaev over 12 rounds at AT&T Stadium. That was last April on the undercard of Spence-Ugas.