ORLANDO, Florida — There’s no love lost between Xander Zayas and Vergil Ortiz Jr.

Before Ortiz and Erickson Lubin agreed to a deal to fight on Nov. 8 at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, on DAZN, the interim WBC junior middleweight champion made a push to make a fight against Zayas for his WBO junior middleweight title. Earlier this month, Ortiz posted on X about Zayas having a deadline to respond to the offer Golden Boy president Eric Gomez sent to Top Rank chief Carl Moretti.

Zayas responded by posting an email screenshot of the offer on X, stating that it wasn’t a real offer. Though he accepted the offer, Zayas wanted the fight in Puerto Rico, as opposed to California or Nevada, as Gomez proposed. The email also detailed that a December fight between Zayas and Ortiz would have been a 50-50 split.

Nevertheless, a tussle between the undefeated junior middleweights won’t be next, and Zayas (22-0, 13 KOs) ripped Ortiz (23-0, 21 KOs) and his team for how things played out.

“There’s phony guys in this business,” Zayas told The Ring on Friday. “I just leave it at what I left it. There was no such thing as a contract. It was a contract that they sent. It was a conversation starter, and that’s where it stayed.”

Ortiz, 27, believed the offer was more than fair for Zayas before fully pivoting to Lubin (27-2, 19 KOs) for his next fight.

“What exactly is so unfavorable about the offer?” He wrote on X. “It’s 50/50. You have time to recover and train for December. And it would be in neutral territory. Don’t run away now, you’ve had three days to agree and we haven’t heard a thing from your side!"

Zayas (22-0, 13 KOs) defeated Jorge Garcia Perez (33-5, 28 KOs) in a one-sided unanimous decision victory to nab the then-vacant WBO title on July 26 at the Madison Square Garden Theater in New York. The victory made the South Florida-based titleholder, by way of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the youngest world champion in boxing at 22 years old.

Sebastian Fundora previously held the title, but vacated it in favor of rematching Tim Tszyu rather than facing Zayas, who was the mandatory challenger at the time. Fundora (23-1-1, 15 KOs) stopped Tszyu after seven rounds on July 19.

Zayas didn’t shut the door on eventually facing Ortiz, who is coming off a unanimous decision victory over former WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov (10-2-1, 7 KOs) in February. Zayas believes the fight has a chance to happen next year, which could add another chapter to one of boxing’s fiercest rivalries, Puerto Rico vs Mexico.

“I feel like 2026 could be the year, maybe if they don’t push it,” Zayas said. “When we first spoke, he said, ‘Talk to me when you become a champion.’ Well, now I’m a champion, so I’m going to give him the same dime back. Talk to me when he becomes a world champion, the 27-year-old prospect that he is.”