By Jim Dower: Heavyweights Luis Ortiz (22-0, 19 KOs) and Bermane Stiverne (24-2-1, 21 KOs) have agreed to a fight that will be taking place on the undercard of the Gennady Golovkin vs. David Lemieux fight card on October 17th at Madison Square Garden in New York.
While the fight has been agreed to between Stiverne and the Cuban Ortiz, they still haven’t yet signed the contracts for the fight. According to Dan Rafael, Ortiz has signed for the fight. He’s promoted by Golden Boy Promotions. Stiverne has yet to sign for the fight. He’s with Don King. It’s unclear what he’s waiting on.
King hasn’t responded as of yet to say whether he’s agreeable to the deal or not. Granted, it’s a risky fight for Stiverne, who lost his WBC heavyweight title last January when he was beaten by Deontay Wilder by a 12 round unanimous decision.
Fighting the tall 6’4” Ortiz in his first fight back from that loss is a potentially difficult match-up for the 6’2” Stiverne. If King opts not to make the fight then he might be doing Stiverne a big favor because this would be a really hard fight for him if he can’t get to Ortiz’s chin to hurt him.
“King agreed to everything. He will make money and doesn’t have to do a thing. We all want this fight and he agreed and then all of a sudden he stopped responding. Just no response,” Stiverne’s manager Camille Estephan said to ESPN.com. “I’m so disappointed with this behavior. Bermane has been training his ass off and needs to get back in the ring. We had a deal and we can’t move forward until King signs the contract he agreed to. This is a great fight and one that Bermane wants and that we all want. But where is King? It’s really uncalled-for behavior.”
Stiverne looked really poor against Wilder. He didn’t deal with the movement that Wilder used in the fight, and without a stationary target, he had problems trying to land his shots. Ortiz isn’t as mobile as Wilder, but he’s very skilled a lot more rugged.
Ortiz is one of those fighters who isn’t afraid to stand in the trenches and trade shots. In some ways he would be an ideal opponent or Stiverne. What would be a problem for Stiverne though is Ortiz’s size. He’s a big heavyweight and he’d have a considerable size advantage in this fight if Stiverne couldn’t get to him to chop him down.
Ortiz-Stiverne would be a good addition to what is already an excellent fight card on the Golovkin vs. Lemieux card. The card also has WBC flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez vs. Brian Viloria in the co-feature bout. Having Ortiz vs. Stiverne would make the fight card that much better.
Stiverne has been idle all this time since his loss to Wilder. It’s too bad that he didn’t get a second fight against Wilder because Stiverne would have a good chance of beating him if he brought his A-game like he did in his two fights against Chris Arreola.
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