By Jim Dower: Unbeaten #1 WBA heavyweight contender Luis “The Real King” Kong (27-0, 3 KOs) has been added to the April 22nd fight card headlined by former welterweight champions Andre Berto and Shawn Porter on Premier Boxing Champions on Showtime from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The fight card starts at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. The Berto vs. Porter fight will be televised on Showtime Championship Boxing.
The opponent for Ortiz is still to be determined. But with less than 1 month to go, it’s not likely that Ortiz’s promoters will be able to get someone that talented that will want to face him on less than 4 weeks’ notice. Getting top fighters to agree to fight Ortiz is hard enough as it is, but getting one to agree to fight with almost no time to prepare, It’s not realistic. Ortiz’s management will do their best job to get the highest caliber opponent they can get given the time constraints.
It’s a great addition to the Berto-Porter card having the 38-year-old Ortiz on the card. The Cuban star Ortiz hasn’t fought since last December in stopping the steel-chinned Dave Allen in the 7th round at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. No one had ever knocked out Allen before that fight.
Ortiz should have gotten a title shot by now at the heavyweight world title. The current heavyweight champions haven’t been in a hurry to fight Ortiz. With the way that Ortiz has been knocking out everybody, he might be too good for his own good. Still, he probably should have gotten a title shot a couple of years ago at the very least. With Ortiz’s high ranking with the World Boxing Association, he’ll get a crack at the winner of the Shannon Briggs vs. Fres Oquendo fight. It would be great if Anthony Joshua gives Ortiz a title shot if he gets past Wladimir Klitschko on April 29. It would be up to Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn if they want to take a fight with Ortiz before he gets too much older.
There is a press conference scheduled for this Thursday to announce the news of the 6’4” Ortiz fighting on the Porter vs. Berto card.
The co-feature bout on the Berto-Porter card is WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo defending his title against No.1 Charles Hatley. This will be a great fight between the unbeaten Charlo (28-0, 13 KOs) defending against a very tough fighter in Hatley (26-1-1, 18 Kos) in what could be the match of the night.