Luis Ortiz would KO Deontay Wilder, says Lederman

By Boxing News - 12/21/2015 - Comments

Image: Luis Ortiz would KO Deontay Wilder, says Lederman(Photo Credit: Alex Menendez – HoganPhotos/Golden Boy Promotions) By Scott Gilfoid: Long time HBO unofficial ringside scorer Harold Lederman believes that the 6’4” interim WBA heavyweight champion Luis “The Real King Kong” Ortiz (24-0, 21 KOs) would knockout the talented 6’7” WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) if the two of these giant heavyweights wind up facing each other in the near future.

Lederman is high on both of them, but he thinks the southpaw Ortiz would have the upper on the younger 30-year-old Wilder if the two of them fought right now.

“Deontay Wilder is tall, he can punch and he can box,” Lederman said to Thaboxingvoice. “I really believe from the bottom of my heart that he’d be competitive with Luis Ortiz. I think Luis Ortiz would knock him out, but Deontay can fight. I like Deontay. Luis keeps improving. He’s a southpaw. We knew he can punch like heck. He’s got a ton of amateur experience. You can say a lot of good stuff about Luis Ortiz and it’s all paid off for him,” Lederman said.

Lederman is with HBO, and Ortiz is an HBO fighter; whereas Wilder fights on Showtime and Premier Boxing Champions. I just wonder if Lederman would have the same opinion about Ortiz being able to KO Deontay if the two of them both fought on HBO instead of only Ortiz. I’m just saying.

I have my doubts whether the soon to be 37-year-old Ortiz would be able to beat the more mobile Wilder if they fought. Wilder doesn’t fight on the inside that much, so he wouldn’t have to worry about getting hit with any of Ortiz’s big left hand uppercuts. Wilder has the better hand speed and the better right hand.

Ortiz and Wilder are traveling in different paths right now. Ortiz is trying to get a title shot against WBA “regular” heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev or IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. Ortiz needs to win the WBA title in order to have bait to lure Wilder to a fight against him. Right now, Ortiz is just an unproven interim WBA champion a the moment. Wilder has fights to take care of against Artur Szpilka and then his WBC mandatory Alexander Povetkin. If/when Wilder wins those two fights, he’ll be looking to fight Fury in a unification. If Wilder wins all three of those fights, he’ll be the unified heavyweight champion. The only belt not in his grasp will be the IBF strap that Vyacheslav Glazkov and Charles Martin are about to fight over.

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For Ortiz to have any chance of beating Wilder, he’ll need to face him in the very near future before he gets much older. Wilder is the much younger fighter of the two, and he’ll be still hitting his prime in three to four years. In that time span, Ortiz will be 40-years-old and definitely up there in age and vulnerable to a big puncher with Wilder’s athleticism and talent.

Ortiz did a great job of knocking out Bryant Jennings in the seventh round last Saturday night in their fight on HBO from the Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, New York. It was a fight that was 50-50 going into the 7th round, when Ortiz was able to knock Jennings down with a left uppercut to the head. Jennings made the mistake of leaning forward while in close with Ortiz.

It was something that Ortiz noticed earlier in the fight and he made a point of taking advantage of it by nailing Jennings repeatedly with uppercuts. Instead of figuring out after the first time that he was vulnerable to Ortiz’s uppercuts, Jennings continued to lean forward and was knocked down by Ortiz.

Ortiz is a very talented heavyweight, but he’s also still unproven. He needs to fight someone with punching power and talent in order for the fans to see if he’s for real or not. I don’t know if Ortiz is for real. All I know is he was good enough to beat the light hitting Jennings.

Deontay will be defending his WBC title in less than a month against #8 WBC contender Artur Szpilka (20-1, 15 KOs) on January 16th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. THe fight will be televised on Showtime Championship Boxing. It should be a great fight.



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