By Scott Gilfoid: IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (17-0, 17 KOs) says he wants to fight unbeaten contender Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (25-0, 22 KOs) in 2017 after he gets done with his mega-fight against former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in their big money fight.
Joshua feels that a fight between him and the southpaw Ortiz would be a good fight. Joshua is already thinking about how he could land his right hand to the head and body or Ortiz. Putting a fight together between Ortiz and Joshua would be a cinch given that Ortiz is now signed to the same promotional company.
However, it’s one thing for Joshua to talk about wanting to fight the 37-year-old Ortiz and another thing entirely for him to sign for the fight and face him. Ortiz is a much different fighter than the soft jobs that Joshua has been facing since he turned pro in 2013.
It might be a reality check for Joshua, because we already saw him get staggered by Dillian Whyte in their fight last year before Whyte injured his left shoulder. If that had been Ortiz doing the punching in that fight, we might have seen Joshua get blasted out. I’m just saying. The injury that Whyte suffered was a miracle for Joshua, because things looked bleak for him after he was staggered in the 2nd. How often do you see a fighter get injured with the same punch that he hurts another fighter with? It’s not very often.
“I see how that is going to unfold. That’s another fight, for me, that is no problem,” said Joshua to skysports.com about Ortiz. “Hopefully I defeat Klitschko and then I can fight Luis Ortiz. I will be watching him for sure because he is a competitor in the division that I could face sooner or later, so I have to put him as a priority. If we fight Ortiz, it would be a good scrap because I like fighting southpaws. I’ve got a powerful right hand that I could whip into the body or straight to the head.”
I’m not holding my breath waiting for Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn to throw him into the ring with a talent like Ortiz. I can’t see it happening until Ortiz ages nicely to the 40s. Right now, Ortiz is just WAY too dangerous for Hearn to take a chance in putting his golden goose Joshua in the ring with a live body like Ortiz. He’s still in his prime and he actually fight, which is more than I can say about most of the guys that Joshua has been dining on since he turned pro.
Joshua has a title defense coming up next month against #8 IBF Eric Molina (25-3, 19 KOs) on December 10 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. It’s anyone’s guess why Joshua and Hearn chose the 34-year-old Molina as his opponent, because Molina was knocked out just last year by WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder in June 2015. Wilder had Molina looking like a human version of a yo-yo with the way he was dropping him left and right. Before the fight was done, Molina had been down four times. It was a TOTAL slaughter from start to finish.
Ortiz has a fight this Saturday night on November 12 against former Wilder victim Malik Scott (38-2-1, 13 KOs) in Monte Carlo. It’s unclear why Ortiz wanted to fight Scott. There’s no real upside in Ortiz fighting him, because he’s not going to get any credit for beating him. Wilder already knocked Malik out in one round in their fight in 2014. How in the heck is Ortiz going to improve on what Wilder did?