Campbell vs. Ortiz: Is Nate too old and too small for Victor?

By Boxing News - 05/14/2010 - Comments

By Jim Dower: On Saturday night, 38-year-old former IBF/WBA/WBO lightweight champion Nate Campbell (38-5-1, 25 KO’s) takes on the younger, bigger, faster and stronger Victor Ortiz (26-2-1, 21 KO’s) on the undercard of the WBA light welterweight clash between Amir Khan vs. Paulie Malignaggi at Madison Square Garden, in New York. I don’t like the looks of this fight for Campbell. At 5’7”, Campbell will be giving up two inches in height against the southpaw 5’9” Ortiz and will be a lot slower and a lot older. Ortiz is only 23-years-old and coming into the prime of his career. Campbell left his prime several years ago. Campbell may have seen his finest hour in beating 5’6” Juan Diaz by a 12 round split decision in 2008.

Things haven’t gone quite as good since then, as Campbell struggled to beat Ali Funeka by a questionable 12 round majority decision in February 2009, and then in August 2009, Campbell fought to a 3 round no contest with Timothy Bradley. The fight ended when Campbell was from a clash of heads. However, he didn’t look good in that fight and didn’t appear to have the hand speed or power needed to beat Bradley.

Tomorrow night, it could be even worse for Campbell, because Ortiz punches a lot harder than Bradley and is about as fast as him. This fight has the ingredients of a one-sided decision or perhaps a stoppage on cuts for Ortiz. It’s not that Campbell isn’t a good fighter, because he is still has a little left. The problem for him is that he’s stepping up in weight against a younger, bigger, faster and more powerful fighter and I think it won’t bode well for Campbell. Ortiz is vulnerable, as we saw in his 6th round stoppage loss to knockout artist Marcos Maidana last year in June. But Maidana was putting a great deal of constant pressure on Ortiz in that fight and landing some monstrous shots.

Campbell isn’t a pressure fighter and doesn’t punch nearly as hard as Maidana. Basically, Campbell is a slower boxer/puncher who can fight well on the inside and has decent power, but he looks really slow at light welterweight. He will almost surely have problems with Ortiz’s hand speed, southpaw stance and his power. Ortiz does everything really well. He’s got a jab that is like a power punch and he also moves really well. Campbell has fought only once in the past year, and that fight ended after only three rounds against Bradley. The inactivity can’t have helped the 38-year-old Bradley.

I see Campbell having a great deal of problems with Ortiz in rounds one through seven. If Campbell is still around after that, he should be able to start landing some of his shots as Ortiz tires a little, but I suspect that Ortiz will use his better jab to control the action in the second half of the fight to cruise to an easy victory. Campbell will probably end up looking old and slow in this fight.



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