Luis Ortiz vs. Malik Scott on HBO on Nov.12

By Boxing News - 10/17/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: HBO Boxing After Dark will be televising next month’s heavyweight match-up between #1 WBA Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (25-0, 22 KOs) and unranked Malik Scotto (38-2-2-1, 13 KOs) on November 12 from the Salle des Etoiles, Sporting Monte-Carlo. HBO will be televising the Ortiz-Scott fight live starting at 4:00 p.m. ET/PT. Ortiz and Scott will be fighting for the vacant WBA Inter-Continental heavyweight title.

The fight will be shown very early on Saturday, and it’ll likely be missed by a lot of the boxing fans who aren’t accustomed to watching events at that time of the day. It’s not expected to be a competitive fight, so it’s a wonder that HBO is televising the fight at all.

Malik Scott, 36, is the same heavyweight that Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder knocked out in one round two years ago in March 2014 in a World Boxing Council heavyweight title eliminator bout. Scott has since won his last two fights in beating Alex Leapai and Tony Thompson by 10 round unanimous decisions.

It’s kind of surprising that Scott isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies after those two decent wins, but I guess the reverberations from his loss to Wilder in was too much for him to come back quickly in the rankings.

“Fans know Luis Ortiz as a heavyweight knockout machine, and we’re happy to announce his showdown with Malik Scott from Monte Carlo live on our network on Nov. 12,” said Peter Nelson, executive vice president, HBO Sports.

Ortiz has looked out of this world good in his last three fights against Tony Thompson, Bryant Jennings and Matias Ariel Vidondo. Ortiz’s 1st round knockout win over Lateef Kayode in September 1014 showed the world how good the Cuban fighter can be, as he totally destroyed a decent fighter in that performance.

It’s fortunate that Tyson Fury gave up his WBA title recently, because if he had to mix it up with Ortiz, I think he’d have been in serious trouble. Unlike Wladimir Klitschko, Ortiz would have had no problems letting his hands go against Fury. I think Ortiz would have taken Fury out in the first three rounds.

You can argue that this is a showcase fight for the 37-year-old Ortiz, as he’s really impressed in his fights on HBO in destroying Bryant Jennings and Tony Thompson. Ortiz, 6’4”, showed a variety of styles in both of those fights. For some boxing fans, they felt they were watching another Larry Holmes, Ali, and Lennox Lewis all rolled up in one with Ortiz. He clearly has studied the styles of those fighters and incorporated a lot of the things that they were able to do in his own game. Ortiz should be able to breeze through Scott without any problems on November 12 to get an easy victory.

Ortiz recently signed with the British promotional company Matchroom Sport. The promoter for that company Eddie Hearn plans on having Ortiz’s fights televised in the UK, and he’s talking about wanting to match him against IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in 2017 if the interest is there from the British boxing fans.

Many fans have a hard time believing Hearn would allow Ortiz to fight the 27-year-old Joshua, because the risk would be extremely high to Joshua if he took that fight. It’s one thing for Hearn to allow Joshua to fight a past his best Wladimir Klitschko, but a completely different thing to let him fight a still in his prime Ortiz.

Wladimir looked like he’s lost much of his game at this point in his career, so the risk isn’t there like it would be if Joshua were to fight Ortiz. It’s likely that Hearn will wait until Ortiz has aged enough to become beatable before he lets Joshua fight him.

Right now, Ortiz is ALL WRONG for Joshua, beginning with his southpaw stance and ending with his dangerous uppercuts he likes to throw on the inside. Joshua would need to retool his game from start to finish for him to have a chance against Ortiz. I think we’re probably going to need to wait until Ortiz is 40-years-old just like Wladimir is now before we see Hearn giving the green light to a Joshua vs. Ortiz fight.

Malik Scott said to Michelle Joy Phelps Behind the Gloves via skysports.com about how he scouted out Ortiz and asked for the fight:

“I picked to fight Luis Ortiz. Months ago after he beat Bryant Jennings, I seen that they were basically crowning him like the next big thing, so that is the guy I wanted to fight. Anybody will fight him for the right amount of money. I’m probably the only guy that will fight him when money is not the issue. He’s a southpaw, he’s 6’4″, he has a hell of a pedigree. He can fight, he is dangerous, but that means I want to fight you, I gravitate to that. It’s a big risk. The reward is even bigger and I am so up for this challenge.”

Well, you can kind of understand Scott’s rationale for wanting to fight Ortiz. It’s absolute gamble that could payoff big time for Scott if he beats the Cuban talent. Scott would likely get a world title shot if he pulls off the upset over Ortiz. If Scott loses to him, it won’t be a big deal because Ortiz is so highly thought of. There’s no shame in losing to a talent like Ortiz just like there’s no shame in losing to a knockout artist like Deontay Wilder. You have nothing to lose when you fight Wilder and Ortiz because they’re so highly rated in the boxing world.

My prediction for the Ortiz-Scott fight is a fast 1st round knockout win for Ortiz. As soon as he lands his first big left hand to the head of Scott, he’ll hit the deck and stay down for the 10 count. I wish the fight would make the full 12 rounds because I would like to see Ortiz show off all the tools in his toolkit. The guy is so complete. I haven’t seen a heavyweight with Ortiz’s type of boxing skills ever, because he can do so many different things.