Vergil Ortiz Jr. insists it is entirely up to Jaron “Boots” Ennis whether they’ll finally fight early in 2026.

Ennis has repeatedly said since he demolished Uisma Lima in the first round October 11 that he wants Ortiz next. Ortiz isn’t convinced that’s true, even though Ennis is expected to sit ringside for Ortiz’s fight with Erickson Lubin on Saturday night at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.

His handlers expect Ennis to call out Ortiz (23-0, 21 KOs) if the decidedly favored knockout artist beats Lubin (27-2, 19 KOs) in a 12-round main event DAZN will stream worldwide (8 p.m. ET).

“We’ll see,” Ortiz said during the newest episode of “Inside The Ring,” co-hosted by The Ring’s Max Kellerman and Mike Coppinger. “You know, I’ve already said yes. I mean, there’s only – that’s all I can do, right? So, we’ll see. It’s really not up to me, I guess.”

Eddie Hearn, Ennis’ promoter, has questioned Ortiz’s willingness to embrace one of the most intriguing fights in boxing based on comments made by Ortiz’s manager, Rick Mirigian, and trainer, Robert Garcia.

Ortiz reminded Kellerman and Coppinger, however, that Ennis is the one who wanted a tune-up fight in his junior middleweight debut, rather than opposing Ortiz in the Philadelphia native's first fight after relinquishing his Ring, IBF and WBA welterweight titles.

“I don’t know,” Ortiz said. “There’s really nothing else that I can do at this point, right? So, the barrier, it’s somewhere on their side. Whether it’s someone, something or some amount of money, I don’t know. That’s completely on them.”

Retired running back LeSean “Shady” McCoy, a regular panelist on “Inside The Ring,” then asked Ortiz to explain why he and Ennis have yet to fight.

“As far as the negotiation, I’m not a manager, right? So, I don’t take part in any of that,” Ortiz said. “All I know is, is that – we can start from the beginning. One-forty-seven, you know, we’re both upcoming prospects or whatever, fight doesn’t happen. I always felt like it was gonna happen at 154 anyways. All right, I move up to 154, past rhabdomyolysis.

“I had to get in a couple tune-up fights because I just came back from a life-threatening illness, and we really wanted to make sure that I was even still OK to fight, because that’s how bad it was. So, I got those fights out of the way, then we fight [Serhii] Bohachuk, then [Israil] Madrimov.“

“Jaron Ennis got a world title at 147, or a couple of ‘em, I think. Good for him, he has a lot of momentum going his way. If I had that much momentum, I would've went straight to the big fight at 154, if I'm being honest. I'm just that kinda guy, I guess, but when it was time to say yes to the fight, I was the only one.

“A lotta people that were saying that I was ducking at 147, when there was no fight to be offered or anything like that, the only times the fight has ever been offered to either of us, I have said yes. So, when people are saying ducking, when they align that word with me … if they wanna align it with him, they should. I don’t care about that. But they wanna align it with me, then they can’t say that because I said yes.”