(Photo Credit: Alex Menendez – HoganPhotos/Golden Boy Promotions) By Scott Gilfoid: Interim WBA heavyweight champion Luis “The Real King Kong” Ortiz (24-0, 21 KOs) wants only the best for his career now that he’s taken care of Bryant Jennings (19-2, 10 KOs) with his seventh round knockout win last night on HBO. Ortiz, 36, said after the fight that he wants to fight WBC champion Deontay Wilder or IBO/WBA/WBO champion Tyson Fury next. Ultimately, Ortiz will fight whoever his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions wants him to, but his preference is to fight Fury or Wilder next.
Ortiz impressed a lot of boxing fans last night with his multi-faceted display of talent in beating the 31-year-old Jennings in front of a large crowd at the Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, New York. The card was stacked from top to bottom, but unfortunately, HBO Boxing After Dark only showed the Ortiz-Jennings and Nicholas Walters vs. Jason Rosa fight.
“I will fight whoever next, whoever Golden Boy Promotions gives me I will take. Wilder, Fury, Klitschko anyone of them, I am ready to prove that I am the heavyweight world champion. A lot of people say a lot of things about me, but the testing showed that I am a clean fighter,” Ortiz said after the fight.
Getting Deontay Wilder to agree to a fight against Ortiz might prove to be impossible right now due to the politics of boxing. Ortiz is with Golden Boy Promotions; whereas Wilder is with Al Haymon. While it’s possible that Haymon might be open to working a deal with Golden Boy for a fight between Wilder and the 36-year-old Ortiz, it’s not probable. There are too many things that could potentially get in the way of that fight.
Wilder fights on Premier Boxing Champions and Showtime; whereas Ortiz fights on HBO. If Wilder and Ortiz had the kind of popularity of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, then this fight would make sense and would be highly possible. That’s not the case though.
Ortiz and Wilder are just two rising stars that are nowhere near where Mayweather and Pacquiao are right now, and it’s likely that neither of these two big heavyweights will ever be at the level of those two superstars. Wilder has the better chance of becoming a huge star because he’s still young at 30, and is a former U.S Olympian with charisma.
Tyson Fury has a defense of his titles against Wladimir Klitschko in a rematch in early 2016. The outcome of that fight is still very uncertain. Fury barely beat Klitschko last November, and he could lose the rematch to him. But if Fury does defeat Wladimir, it’s anyone’s guess what Fury will do.
It’s doubtful that he’ll want to share the ring with an interim heavyweight champion like Luis Ortiz. The fight would be very dangerous for Fury due to Ortiz’s punching power, boxing skills and aggressiveness. Fury wouldn’t be able to count on Ortiz not throwing punches like we saw with Wladimir. Ortiz would throw punches against Fury, and he wouldn’t be bothered if he missed a lot of them because he would follow up with more shots.
Wladimir seemed to be hyper-worried about potentially missing punches against Fury for fear of being countered. Ortiz would likely trust his chin enough to throw shots, especially against a weak puncher like Fury. My guess is Fury will look to fight Wilder in a unification fight if he gets past Wladimir in the rematch, because the money would be too good for a fight against Wilder for Fury not to take it.
I think Ortiz has a long ways to go before he catches up to where Wilder is right now in terms of worldwide popularity. For Ortiz to get to where Wilder is now, he’s going to need to win the WBA “regular” heavyweight title against champion Ruslan Chagaev, and then beat some of the contenders.
I’d like to see Ortiz fight unbeaten Anthony Joshua or Dillian Whyte, but I doubt that Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn will let him anywhere near Ortiz for a couple of years. By then, Ortiz will be 38-years-old and possibly showing enough signs of having lost his skills for Joshua to defeat him. I think Whyte would take the fight with Ortiz right now if he had the full WBA heavyweight title and not just the interim strap.
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