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Rocky Balboa famously said, “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” He may as well have been talking about Vergil Ortiz Jr.

A forward-marching puncher who cuts the ring down with purpose, Ortiz throws every shot with bad intentions while refusing backward steps. He’s powerful without wasted motion, a pressure-fighter who does not panic. Yet the 27-year-old is calm outside the ropes, too. Calmer than you’d think, considering the beast he turns into when he steps into the ring and separates opponents from their senses. And he’s had to overcome a lot.

Back in 2021, the fighter had already handily dealt with Maurice Hooker and Egidijus Kavaliauskas to fortify his reputation as one of boxing’s fastest-risers, but his greater challenge lay away from the sport as he battled rhabdomyolysis and long-COVID-related illnesses that caused muscle breakdown, extreme fatigue and repeated fight withdrawals. There were nights his body simply wouldn’t respond, and times he wondered if boxing had left him behind. There were no guarantees his abilities and his career in combat sports would ever be the same again.

Though those illnesses deprived him of a world championship shot at welterweight, Ortiz has rebounded with considerable aplomb at super welterweight, scoring notable wins over Serhii Bohachuk and Israil Madrimov in back-to-back bouts over the past 15 months to reengerize his stock.

Now he has a legitimate claim to be the No. 1 fighter in the division, alongside Sebastian Fundora and Jaron “Boots” Ennis. The demand will soon heighten for him to box the unbeaten Ennis, which is a bona fide superfight that could define American boxing’s next era. But first, Ortiz must return to the ring for the second time this year and fight Erickson Lubin — a dangerous puncher and a southpaw to boot — Saturday at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, a hometown fight for Ortiz.

Ortiz recognizes Lubin as “dangerous,” telling Uncrowned, “He has experience, and he has power. He legitimately goes in there to fight people. I respect that about him, but he’s also a smart fighter as well, so when you add both of those into the [equation], that’s when you have a dangerous fighter.”

But ahead of the Lubin bout, which could turn into a fire-fight at a moment’s notice, Ortiz faced a rude awakening that comes with rising star power. He’s been told he’ll be knocked out by rival fans before, but when checking his social media earlier this month, he saw a two-word message: “Die b****.”

“I’m going to be honest,” Ortiz told Uncrowned this week. “I didn’t really care a whole lot [about that]. Like, it didn’t affect me, but it was more … alright. You want to say stuff like that? I’m going to put it in the spotlight, so people can see who you really are.

“People are all talk on social media. They love to talk. They love to be behind the safety of a computer screen, or on their phone. They love anonymity. They feel safe. They would never do it in public.

“I’ve had people say, ‘I hope you get knocked out,'” he continued. “But there’s a difference between saying, ‘I hope my guy wins, I hope he loses,’ or whatever. And that’s different from saying ‘I wish death’ upon someone, or hoping someone goes to the hospital.

“I just try my best not to let it get the best of me, because if you allow someone to actually have that much control over you emotionally, then they own you. And I don’t let people own me. I own myself. I don’t let other people dictate what I’m going to do. I control my actions, and I try to keep that mindset.”

Ortiz instead focuses only on Lubin. With wins over Terrell Gausha, Jeison Rosario and Jesus Ramos, together with an up-and-down Fight of the Year banger involving Fundora, Lubin’s appetite for destruction is obvious.

And Lubin does not fear Ortiz. He sees him as a third successive undefeated opponent whom he can inflict a first-ever loss upon. “I fought top opposition after top opposition, and Vergil Ortiz is no different,” Lubin told Uncrowned in September. “He’s another top fighter. This is my third undefeated fighter in a row, and I’m looking to become that dude at 154 pounds.”

That’s what makes Lubin so dangerous, and why Ortiz remains focused on his imminent opponent rather than outside noise. “I want to win,” Ortiz said. “And I want to win looking good. Just being in the ring with someone with the pedigree like Erickson, it motivates me to train harder, to actually want to come to the gym.”

Ortiz is “ready to go,” he said, but once the topic turned to Lubin’s prowess against punchers like Ramos, and how electric it was being ringside for Lubin’s war against Fundora — a bout in which both men received counts from the referee — Ortiz changed his tone. “I do not want to end up on the floor,” he said. “That is not what I want.

“But as far as a fire-fight, that’s it. It’s very exciting. If you think you’re excited just watching those fights, imagine actually being inside one as one of those fighters that’s actually part of it. It’s a hundred times more invigorating. It’s just a different feeling that you really can’t describe unless you’re in it. And I’ll be in it.”

Ortiz and Lubin might not be the only marquee fighters in that Fort Worth ring, as “Boots” Ennis and his promoter Eddie Hearn — heated rivals of both Ortiz and his own promotional representative, Oscar de la Hoya — will be present. Ortiz and “Boots” are linked with a 2026 fight. It’s one of the baddest bouts boxing could make. Two fighters who are both in their prime and can both bang. It’s the very recipe that makes combat so great.

But, again, Ortiz brushes aside any distractions outside of Lubin.

“It sounds like [Ennis and Hearn] are going to be there, and it doesn’t bother me,” Ortiz said. “I’m going there to take care of Lubin, and that’s it.”

He added: “If they want to come to the fight, well, it’s a public event. They’re free to do what they wish. That’s really just how I see it — that they’re a spectator. And they’re a spectator from the start of the show until the end of the show. It doesn’t bother me. They can do what they want.”

Ortiz has already taken life’s hardest shots and kept moving forward.

On Saturday, he plans to hit back even harder.