Vergil Ortiz Jr. never had any doubt that his local rivalry showdown with Maurice Hooker would end inside the distance.

There was the admission, however, that he initially went about it the wrong way.

Ortiz eventually stopped Dallas’ Hooker (27-2-3, 18KOs) in the 7th round of their entertaining March 20th shootout at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. Hooker—a former junior welterweight titlist—was dropped late in round six and again early in round seven, the latter combined with a broken right hand injury resulting in the fight being stopped.

“At first, I started going for the head,” Ortiz confessed to BoxingScene.com after the bout. “I thought I was going to take him out with a head shot, but he’s smarter than that. I started investing to the body and it got the job done.

“I should have done that from the beginning but it all worked out in the end.”

It made for a fun fight between the pair of locally-based welterweights. Ortiz (17-0, 17KOs) fought in the region for the first time since Aug. 2019, when he stopped Antonio Orozco in the 6th round of their DAZN headliner in his Grand Prairie hometown. The win marked the deepest he’d been as a pro to that point, since surpassed by a stoppage win over Samuel Vargas after seven rounds last July and his most recent win over Hooker.

There was the sense that the fight could have ended a little earlier, though Ortiz made sure to ultimately close the show.

“I could tell the first time that I dropped him, that he didn’t want to get back up,” insisted Ortiz of the 6th round knockdown. “He was already demoralized. He got back up and the round ended but I could see it in his face that he didn’t want to continue.

“The second time, yes he got injured and they wouldn’t let him back up but I felt like I was going to finish him.”

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox