Saturday's Golden Boy Card on the grounds of UT Arlington was supposed to showcase world title fights, including Grand Prairie native Vergil Oritz plus unified women's Flyweight champ Marlen Esparza of Houston. However, both those fights have been axed. Ortiz's title fight with WBA 'regular' world title holder Eimantas Stanionis was called-off when Ortiz suffered a flare-up of Rhabdomyolysis, a serious medical condition he was diagnosed with last year before his original fight date with Michael McKinson in the first quarter of 2022.
Esparza, who holds the WBA and WBC Flyweight titles, was supposed to meet up with WBO champ "La Chucky '' Gabriela Celeste Alaniz of Argentina. That fight fell through as Alaniz's visa was not processed and approved in time. According to Golden Boy president Eric Gomez, there's nothing legally holding it up, and there's no reason to think the Visa won't be approved. It "just takes time," and it took more time than expected, and they ran out of time.
Both these fights will likely be rescheduled for July 8th and possibly in San Antonio at the AT&T Center. Golden Boy originally planned to keep the card in the DFW area but had trouble finding a venue according to Gomez. They have done well in San Antonio, and it's still in Ortiz's and Esparza's home state. The Alamo City has been particularly friendly to Esparza. She scored two consecutive wins in the Alamo City in 2021-22. She picked up two lopsided decisions. First over Anabel Ortiz at the AT&T Center in late 2021. The Houstonian then scored one of the most important wins of her impressive career by outpointing Naoko Fujioka in a unification bout in which Esparza also became the first ever Ring Magazine Women's Flyweight Champ at the Alamodome on the undercard of Ryan Garcia VS Emmanuel Tagoe in front of a crowd of nearly 15,000 fans.