Vergil Ortiz Jr. will face Erickson Lubin in Ortiz’s proverbial backyard on Saturday night.

Ortiz will defend his WBC interim super welterweight title, which, if he wins, would keep him in position to challenge WBC 154-pound champ Sebastian Fundora. The favored Ortiz also needs to beat Lubin to remain in line to face Jaron Ennis next in one of the fights fans most want to see in 2026.

Much of the pressure seemingly is on Ortiz to win a 12-round main event DAZN will stream from Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. Ortiz doesn’t see it that way, though.

The Grand Prairie, Texas, native explained his rationale during the newest episode of “Inside The Ring,” co-hosted by The Ring’s Max Kellerman and Mike Coppinger.

“I don’t know if there’s pressure … I think there’s a lotta pressure on him, actually,” Ortiz said. “And I think that that’s gonna make the fight interesting because a lotta people are counting him out. And that’s gonna bring the fire out of him. So, in turn, me thinking that, well, now it’s gonna bring the fire out of me because I know he’s gonna have some kind of urgency in the ring. So, now I have urgency.”

DraftKings lists Ortiz (23-0, 21 KOs) as a 9-1 favorite versus Lubin (27-2, 19 KOs). Underdogs generally feel less pressure, but Lubin looks at this fight as his opportunity to secure a rematch with Fundora that he has wanted for the past three years.

Lubin lost to Fundora by technical knockout in April 2022, when both boxers were knocked down during a back-and-forth, action-packed battle that left Lubin with a severely swollen face. His former trainer, Kevin Cunningham, told referee Tony Weeks to end their 12-rounder after the ninth round because he was worried Lubin would suffer permanent damage to his face if he continued.

Lubin led Fundora by one point apiece on two scorecards when their fight for the WBC interim super welterweight title was stopped.

Fundora (23-1-1, 15 KOs) is recovering from a hand injury that forced a postponement last month of his title defense against Keith Thurman, which was scheduled for October 25 in Las Vegas.

Lubin was the mandatory challenger for IBF junior middleweight champ Bakhram Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) when he chose to oppose Ortiz. The 30-year-old southpaw from Orlando, Florida, told The Ring that he picked Ortiz over Murtazaliev because it is a higher-profile fight for a bigger purse even though Ortiz owns only an interim championship.

Russia’s Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) is expected to defend his IBF belt against England’s Josh Kelly (17-1-1, 9 KOs) sometime late in January at an undetermined site in the UK.