By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten highly rated #1 WBA heavyweight contender Luis “King Kong” Ortiz weighed in at 239.5 pounds during Friday’s weigh-in for his fight against the serviceable Malik Scott for Saturday’s fight on HBO World Boxing in Monte Carlo.
Malik (38-2-1, 13 KOs) weighed in at a heavy looking 246.4lbs. What was interesting about the two straightaway was that the 6’4” Malik appeared to be at least one inch taller than Ortiz, and clearly the heavier looking of the two. This suggests that the listed 6’4” height that Ortiz has isn’t legit. He looks no more than 6’3”. That’s not an issue for this fight, of course, because Malik is obviously not in the same class as Ortiz in terms of talent, boxing skills, power and experience, but it might be a problem in the future for the Cuban when he starts facing the giants in the heavyweight division.
(Photo credit: Laurence Lustig, Matchroom Boxing)
The southpaw Ortiz, 37, is likely going to have no problems blasting Malik out quickly in this fight. The talented Deontay Wilder, now the WBC heavyweight champion, obliterated Malik in one round two years ago in their WBC heavyweight title eliminator bout. Ortiz will likely do something similar if he goes after Malik early. Malik looked very timid in the Wilder fight. I can’t imagine him being confident going against Ortiz on Saturday night. Fans shouldn’t blink in the first couple of rounds tomorrow night, because they might miss Ortiz knocking Scott out.
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In other weights on Saturday’s Ortiz-Scott card, former three time world title challenger Martin Murray (33-4, 1 16 KOs) weighed in at 167.7lbs for his fight against unbeaten replacement opponent Nuhu Lawal (23-0, 13 KOs) for the vacant WBA Continental super middleweight title. The 34-year-old Lawal weighed in at 165.5lbs.
Lawal is moving up from the middleweight division to fight Murray. Lawal is the replacement for Dmitry Chudinov, who is ill and cannot fight Murray on Saturday. Chudinov was the replacement for Arthur Abraham, who pulled out of the fight due to an injury.
Murray lost to Abraham by a close 12 unanimous decision last year in November when Abraham was still the World Boxing Organization super middleweight champion. Murray was hoping he could get a chance to avenge the loss, because he believed he could beat him. Unfortunately for Murray, he’s now facing the unbeaten Lawal in a fight that he’s had no time to prepare for his style.
Murray’s promoter Eddie Hearn was yapping about how good Lawal is and how tough of an opponent this is for Murray. It’s unclear if Hearn was serious or not. Based on Lawal’s thin resume, which is filled with a lot of weaker names, it’s hard to know how good he is. But if Hearn is correct about Lawal being a very good fighter, then I wouldn’t be surprised if Murray loses to him. Heck, all Lawal has to do for him to beat Murray is follow the blueprint created by Sergio Martinez by throwing a lot of shots to force him to cover up all night long. Murray doesn’t react well when he fights guys that throw a lot of punches. He tends to hide behind his clam-shell guard by instinct and stay there all night long. We saw Murray lose to George Groves in his last fight because he spent too much time in the fight hiding behind his clam-shell rather than actually fighting. It was pretty sad to see, but not surprising if you’ve seen how Murray has fought in the past. He just does not like mixing it up.
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WBA World super featherweight champion Jason Sosa (19-1-4, 15 KOs) weighed in at 128.8lbs for his title defense against #11 IBF contender Stephen Smith (24-2, 14 KOs). Smith weighed in at 130lbs. This is the second this year that the 31-year-old Smith is getting a world title shot. Smith was beaten by IBF World super featherweight champion Jose Pedraza by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision last April. Smith has since won his last fight against Daniel Eduardo Bizuela. It’s unclear why Sosa is bothering with fighting Smith rather than another contender. My guess is the money was too good to resist in a title defense like this. It doesn’t matter. Sosa is bad news for a guy like Smith, whose natural inclination is to slug it out with his opponents. If he tries that on Saturday night with Sosa, then this fight could end early. The boxing fans will like the fight, because it should have a lot of action unless Smith changes his fighting style to become more passive. Either way, he’s not going to be able to avoid Sosa for long even if he runs from him.
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WBA World bantamweight champion Jamie McDonnell (28-2-1, 13 KOs) weighed in at 118lbs for his title defense against little known #2 WBA Liborio Solis (25-4-1, 11 KOs). Solis weighed in at 117.7lbs. The 5’10” McDonnell will have a huge six inch height advantage over the 5’4” Solis to go along with a 2 ½” reach advantage. The biggest thing that McDonnell has going for him in this fight is that Solis not a big puncher. That’s good news for McDonnell, because if he had any power to speak of, it might be a very difficult fight for him. McDonnell is not a puncher either. He wins his fights based on his size advantage over his opponents. He’s always the much bigger guy inside the ring.
Another thing that McDonnell has going for him is he’s never fought any of the really good bantamweights in the division. You’ll still be able to say that after Saturday. For some reason, McDonnell’s promoter Eddie Hearn hasn’t matched him against the talents at bantamweight like Shinsuke Yamanaka and Juan Carlos Payana. Never the less, the bantamweight division is kind of barren of talented fighters. The really good fighters are in the divisions below bantamweight at super flyweight and the divisions above it in the super bantamweight division.
If McDonnell were fighting in either of those divisions, he would have a very hard time dealing with the likes of Roman Gonzalez, Carlos Cuadras, Naoya Inoue, Guillermo Rigondeaux, Scott Quigg, Nonito Donaire, Cesar Juarez and Jessie Magdaleno. I couldn’t see McDonnell beating any of those guys. That’s why it’s in McDonnell’s best interest to stay at bantamweight for as long as possible. I’m just saying.
Official weights for the card:
Luis Ortiz 239.5 vs. Malik Scott 246.4
Jamie McDonnell 118 vs. Liborio Solis 117.7
Jason Sosa 128.8 vs. Stephen Smith 130
Martin Murray 167.7 vs. Nuhu Lawal 165.5
