By Scott Gilfoid: IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua is going to be facing a very tough fight in Luis Ortiz after his match against Wladimir Klitschko on April 29. The WBA has decided to make Ortiz the mandatory for the vacant WBA title that Joshua (18-0, 18 KOs) and Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) will be fighting over in their big fight at Wembley Stadium in London, UK.
Some boxing fans are probably saying, ‘It’s about time’ that Ortiz be put in a situation where he can finally get a title shot. He’s been ranked highly by the World Boxing Association for over a year now without getting a shot at the belt.
WBA president Gilberto J. Mendoza will let his WBA title be fought over by Joshua and Klitschko, but the winner will need to fight Ortiz (27-0, 23 KOs). That’s not a big money fight for Joshua, and it’s also not one that will add another belt to his collection.
“We decided to give [Ortiz] a chance at the winner,” said Mendoza to Fight News. “The decision is the following: Joshua will fight Klitschko, the winner will have to face Ortiz. I will set deadlines between the winner of Joshua and Klitschko [to agree a fight with Ortiz].”
Unless the WBA enforces the Ortiz vs. Joshua fight, it’s quite possible that Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn will work out a deal to have Joshua steer around Ortiz to fight either WBC champion Deontay Wilder or WBO champion Joseph Parker. Both champions are interested in facing Joshua.
Those are bigger money fights with more on the line for Joshua than if he were to fight the soon to be 38-year-old Ortiz. He has nothing to offer other than his unbeaten record and the respect that he has from the hardcore boxing fans. The casual fans don’t know who Ortiz is, and it’s not a Wembley Stadium type of fight or one that will pull in a lot of PPV buys on Sky Box Office.
The Joshua-Ortiz fight would make news, but it wouldn’t make the kind of money that other fights could make for Joshua. That’s probably why Hearn will make sure that he steers Joshua around the Ortiz fight for as long as possible before he finally makes that fight. It’s dangerous and it’s not one that will bring in the money that Joshua can make elsewhere. I think Ortiz is too dangerous for his own good right now.
You hate to overlook the 41-year-old Klitschko entirely when it comes to him being able to beat Joshua and then fight Ortiz with the IBF and WBA titles back in his possession, but it doesn’t seem realistic that he’s going to be able to get past Joshua. Klitschko had his day in the sport, and it appears that it’s over with. He’s merely the name for Joshua to add to his resume, and to make a lot of money off of on Sky Box Office PPV buys and with the large gate that will come from their fight at Wembley Stadium.
Klitschko has the name that the casual boxing fans will recognize. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the talent still. Maybe Klitschko never did have the talent. Out of Klitschko’s many fights during his career, he has so few names of talented heavyweights. There’s really none. Maybe David Haye is one guy you can say has talent. The rest of the fighters Wladimir fought have been largely smaller and less talented.
Ortiz is part of the Matchroom Sport stable. He’s going to get a shot against Joshua sooner or later. The WBA president Mendoza is trying to push for the fight to happen sooner, but it’s very unlikely that Hearn will let that fight happen yet. Since signing with Matchroom Sport, Ortiz has beaten David Allen and Malik Scott. He looked good against Allen, but not so good against Scott.
Hearn is trying to build-up Ortiz’s name in the UK before he matches him against Joshua. The problem is Hearn is matching Ortiz against the wrong type of fighters for that to happen. He needs to entice some of the bigger name contenders to fight Ortiz by opening up his pocketbook to make it financially worthwhile for them to fight him. With the limited amount of money available to pay fighters to face Ortiz, he’s not been able to find quality opposition to fight him.
What would be a real downer for Hearn and his Matchroom Sport stable is if he did let Ortiz fight Joshua after the Klitschko fight and he turned around and beat him. Joshua’s boxing fans would be upset, and it might hurt the future sales for him on PPV. But there would be nothing Hearn could do about it, because he wants Joshua to collect all the heavyweight titles.
If you’re collect all the titles in the division, then it means you’re going to have to fight the better heavyweights every now and then rather than having Hearn hand-pick guys like Dominic Breazeale and Eric Molina for you to pad your record with for easy PPV money. The sanctioning bodies are going to require you to fight an actual with some talent at least on a yearly basis if the sanctioning has their act together. Unfortunately, not all the sanctioning bodies have their act together, because some champions don’t have to defend their titles against their mandatory challengers for years on end.