WORCESTER—When Jamaine Ortiz tries to dethrone Teofimo Lopez as World Boxing Organization junior welterweight champion in Las Vegas on Feb. 8, he’ll feel as if he’ll be fighting not only for himself but for his hometown of Worcester as well.
He said it would mean a lot to him to become the first professional world boxing champion who was born and raised in Worcester.
“From the city of Worcester not too many people make it out to the glory stage,” he said this week, “and I just want to let them know that it is possible and I did everything here in my hometown—training camps, fighting and everything. I never had to leave. A lot of people feel they have to leave to get some glory.”
The 2014 Doherty High graduate is the last of the active boxers who trained under Carlos Garcia at the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester before the club moved from Ionic Ave. to Boys & Girls Club Way in 2006. He continued training at the club but switched to Camp Get Right in Worcester and Guaranteed Fitness in Spencer when the Boys Club temporarily closed during the start of the pandemic.
Ortiz, 27, will take a record of 17-1-1 with eight knockouts into the Feb. 8 bout at the Michelob Ultra Arena in Vegas. He knows that other boxers and boxing fans from Worcester will be pulling for him.
“I feel like everybody feels like they’re winning when I win,” he said.
Lopez, a 26-year-old Brooklyn native and Vegas resident, is 19-1 with 13 KOs, but Ortiz isn’t afraid of him. In fact, when Ortiz was in Vegas to watch a Michel Rivera fight in November, he approached Lopez and challenged him to a bout.
“It’s part of the sport,” Ortiz said. “It’s part of the business. If you don’t go and be outspoken and demand things that you want, they won’t come to you.”
The mild-mannered Ortiz isn’t normally outspoken.
“In the past, I wasn’t,” he said, “but when you want something really bad and the doors close on you, you have to find a way to knock down the doors and break in.
“I said, ‘We have to get in the ring,’ and there was a little chit-chat back and forth, and that was about it,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz approached Lopez and agreed to move up from his 135-pound weight class to Lopez’s 140-pound class because he was tired of highly-ranked boxers in his lightweight division refusing to fight him.
“They know I’m a big threat,” Ortiz said. “They know I’ll beat them.”
Rocky Gonzalez, Ortiz’s trainer, made sure to thank promoter Jimmy Burchfield of CES Boxing for helping arrange the fight.
“We can’t do it without him,” Gonzalez said. “He’s the best. Without him, we wouldn’t get this far.”
Ortiz is looking forward to fighting at a slightly higher weight because he won’t have to shed as many pounds before the fight. Gonzalez pointed out that Ortiz fought at 138 pounds in his last bout.
Either way, Ortiz is confident.
“Of course, of course, I’m going to win,” he said.
“I think he has a great chance,” Gonzalez said, “especially the way he’s been looking in the gym. We have a great chance at an upset. Obviously, we’ll be the underdog, only because he hasn’t been seen a lot. That’s fine.”
Ortiz enters the bout as a heavy underdog.
“For most of my career, it’s been like that,” he said. “At least in the latter part of it. I’m on the B side and they’re the A side. Nothing new. I’ve always been looked down upon in the sense of people not thinking I could do it and just overcoming the odds.”
Jose Antonio Rivera lived in Worcester when he won the International Boxing Organization welterweight title in 1997, the World Boxing Association welterweight crown in 2003 and the WBA junior middleweight title in 2006 to become the only two-division world boxing champion from Massachusetts. Rivera, however, was not born in Worcester. He was born in Philadelphia and lived in Puerto Rico and Springfield before moving to Worcester at age 16. He’s lived here ever since.
Ortiz has already fought Lopez in Las Vegas, way back in 2015 when they were amateurs. Lopez earned a decision over Ortiz in the 132-pound final at the National Golden Gloves Tournament. Ortiz said that fight happened too long ago to help him prepare for the rematch. That fight was only three rounds. This one is scheduled for 12 rounds and Ortiz believes he grows stronger as a bout progresses.
“My conditioning, my endurance,” he said. “I start getting more into my rhythm as the fight goes.”
Ortiz also fought in Vegas on April 21, 2022, when he earned a unanimous decision over Jamel Herring to win the vacant IBF USBA lightweight title and retain his North American Boxing Federation lightweight crown. If Ortiz wins on Feb. 8, he’ll collect his first world championship.
The fight will not only be the main event on a Top Rank Boxing card televised nationally by ESPN; it will be held three nights before Super Bowl LVIII is played at Allegiant Stadium in Vegas.
“It’s great,” Ortiz said. “The exposure, all the eyes, they’ll be able to see my talent, they’ll be able to see what I do to Teofimo. So the more viewers, the better, and I’m excited.”
Gonzalez pointed out that although the Patriots won’t be playing in the Super Bowl, New England will still be going to Vegas to support Ortiz.
Ortiz plans to fly to Vegas on Jan. 20 to continue his training. Gonzalez is scheduled to travel to Puerto Rico to work a fight for Demek Edmonds, a cruiserweight from Worcester, before heading to Vegas.
Ortiz suffered his only loss, on Oct. 29, 2022, to Vasyl Lomachenko by unanimous decision at Madison Square Garden in New York. Ortiz believes he won the fight and the loss taught him that he needs to dictate the pace late in the fight.
“Don’t be so passive in the last championship rounds,” he said, “and really take it home.”
Ortiz fought Lomachenko in the main event on ESPN. Gonzalez had a bad headache and a fever that day and took about five showers to try to drop his temperature. Once his adrenaline kicked in, he felt better during the fight, but the next day learned that he had Covid when he couldn’t taste his food. He remembers half-kiddingly hoping he gave Lomachenko’s crew Covid for robbing Ortiz of the decision.
Ortiz rebounded from his only loss with a win by unanimous decision over Antonio Moran on Sept. 15, 2023, in Corpus Christi, Texas.
As the challenger and underdog, Ortiz realizes that if the Feb. 8 fight is close Lopez will likely get the decision.
“I’m going to have to go there and take it home and not let it be close,” he said.
Lopez is the former WBO, WBA and IBF lightweight champion. He won the WBO junior welterweight title last June by unanimous decision over Josh Taylor and he said he plans to make a statement against Ortiz.
“To the boxing fans around the world,” he told the media recently, “I look not only to dominate and break down Jamaine Ortiz, but to do it in such a fashion that my division will be put on alert.”
Lopez added that he knows that “Jamaine is tough” because they fought years ago, but he doesn’t care.
“I’ll show the world that champions don’t flinch when faced with challenges,” he said. “They rise and shine the brightest when the stakes are highest.”
Ortiz feels the same way.
Bill Doyle has been a professional journalist for 47 years, most of them as a sports writer for the Telegram & Gazette. He covered the Boston Celtics for 25 years and has written extensively about golf, boxing and local high school and college sports. He also worked for the campus newspaper when he attended UMass-Amherst. He can be reached at billdoyle1515@gmail.com
