Erickson Lubin won’t win the legitimate junior middleweight title that has eluded him if he upsets Vergil Ortiz Jr. on Saturday night.

Ortiz only owns the WBC interim 154-pound crown, but Lubin believes beating the undefeated knockout artist will earn him something he has long sought more than a championship. The gutsy southpaw from Orlando, Florida, feels a victory over Ortiz will win him the respect many “naysayers” haven’t given him.

Lubin thinks many of his detractors still hold his first-round knockout loss to Jermell Charlo against him, even though nine years have passed since Charlo caught Lubin, then just 22 years old, with a right hand that stunningly ended their fight for Charlo’s WBC belt.

“It’s given me a whole bunch of motivation,” Lubin told The Ring, “because I’ve been doing this for so long, and I feel like I fought the top guys. You know, I never said no to an opponent. And I just feel like the respect isn’t really given.

“Some do obviously respect me. I’ve got a great majority that do show love and respect for what I do for boxing, but I just feel like it’s time for a big win. Something like beating Ortiz, a big win like that, I feel like I’ll get the respect that I’m looking for.”

The heavy-handed Ortiz is a 9-1 favorite, according to DraftKings. The 27-year-old Ortiz (23-0, 21 KOs), of Grand Prairie, Texas, still expects a firefight from a hungry underdog eager to prove he has plenty of championship-caliber boxing in him.

Lubin’s only loss since Charlo knocked him out in October 2017 came in a spectacular slugfest with Sebastian Fundora. A resilient Lubin got off the canvas in the second round of that memorable, brutal bout in April 2022, floored Fundora in the seventh and led by a point apiece on two scorecards when his trainer, Kevin Cunningham, stopped the action after the ninth round due to scary swelling on Lubin’s face.

Lubin is 9-1 overall since he lost to Charlo, who went on to become boxing’s first undisputed junior middleweight champ of the four-belt era.

The resilient Lubin (27-2, 19 KOs) defeated unbeaten opponents, Jesus Ramos and Ardreal Holmes Jr., in his last two fights to become the mandatory challenger for Bakhram Murtazaliev’s IBF junior middleweight title. He passed on what would’ve been his first real title shot since Charlo beat him mostly because he was offered a bigger purse to oppose Ortiz, The Ring’s No. 1 junior middleweight.

Lubin is fifth in The Ring’s top 10, behind Ortiz, Fundora (23-1-1, 15 KOs), Israil Madrimov (10-2-1, 7 KOs) and Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs). Ortiz beat Uzbekistan’s Madrimov by unanimous decision in his last fight, a 12-rounder February 22 at ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

“I feel like I’m one of the top 154s,” Lubin said. “I feel like they throw narratives out there and make me seem like my time has passed, and all that type of [expletive]. But I’m just entering my prime. I feel great. A guy like Vergil Ortiz is gonna bring the best out of me because he’s young and on fire, so I just wanna prove to the fans that I’ve still got that fire in me, that I still work hard, that I still beat people up in sparring in the gym.

"I feel great. So, I think this right here is more like judgment day for both of us.”

Lubin, who turned 30 on October 1, senses that he and Ortiz are about to put on a “Fight of the Year” candidate in a 12-round main event DAZN will stream from Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas (8 p.m. ET).

“I feel better than ever,” Lubin said, “and I feel like the fans are in for a treat November 8th.”