According to Vergil Ortiz's trainer Robert Garcia, however, a more difficult task for his man would be Sebastian Fundora.

"I think [Sebastian] Fundora is tougher than Boots,” he told The Ring's CEO Rick Reeno on the Mr. Verzace Podcast. “He has already experienced getting knocked out and then after that, became champion. Since then, he's got so much better. Every fight I see he's getting better and better. Plus, he's the tallest guy ... probably in boxing. So tall, awkward, lanky, makes it difficult for anybody.”

Fundora’s 6-foot-5 frame might be hard to deal with, but Ortiz (24-0, 22 KOs) has been wanting to get his hands on him for quite some time now. The Ring’s No. 2-ranked junior middleweight thought a matchup between them would be imminent after beating Serhii Bohachuk for the WBC interim title in August 2024.

Fundora, now the WBC's full titleholder, will make a mandatory defense against Ermal Hadribeaj on October 17 at Dignity Health Sports Park, in Carson, California.

Garcia is expecting Fundora (24-1-1, 16 KOs) to look good in victory, and he plans on pushing him to fight Ortiz immediately after.

“Fundora has a mandatory already,” Garcia continued. “We already approached Mauricio [Sulaiman, President of the WBC] and he told me 'look, whenever you guys want, I'll enforce it but now he has to do his mandatory.' After that, we could go straight into a Fundora fight, March-April next year.”

Garcia may have it all figured out, but Ennis, The Ring's No. 1 junior middleweight, is still in the picture.

Ennis, who holds both the WBA and WBO titles thanks to his seventh-round stoppage win over Xander Zayas on June 27, is in talks to face Josh Kelly, the IBF titlist.

“If Boots fights Kelly and then says I'm one fight away from undisputed, a unification for undisputed beats us as the mandatory [interim champion] so more likely, Fundora will say sorry Vergil but I'm gonna go for undisputed too. That's another year for us [without challenging for the full world title]. If we have to go through all of that, wait ... [we'll] go up to middleweight.”