By Dan Ambrose: A fight between former welterweight world champions Victor Ortiz and Devon Alexander is being talked about for early next year in February 2018, according to Fighthype. This is a must win for both fighters, as they’ve seen their once promising careers disintegrate in recent years. Ortiz-Alexander would have been a fun fight 6 years ago when the 2 guys were major players at 147. At this point, it’s not as interesting. It’s more of a Danny Garcia vs. Brandon Rios type of business fight involving fading fighters without a place for them at the top.
The winner of the Ortiz-Alexander fight will get pushed up the welterweight rankings, and you can bet they’ll get a title shot soon. However, neither of them is ranked in the top 15 by any of the 4 sanctioning bodies at this time. It would be a big step up for the Ortiz vs. Alexander winner to challenge 147 lb. title holders Errol Spence Jr., Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman and Jeff Horn. Even when Ortiz and Alexander were in the prime of their careers, I don’t think they would be able to hang with any of the current champions at welterweight.
Former 2 division world champion Alexander (27-4, 14 KOs) recently made a comeback last November in beating Walter Castillo by a 10 round unanimous decision in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Alexander dropped Castillo in round 2, and dominated the fight the rest of the way in winning by the scores 100-89, 96-93 and 100-89. That was the first fight for the 30-year-old Alexander since his 10 round unanimous loss to journeyman Aaron Martinez on October 14, 2015.
Alexander looked a lot better against Castillo than he did against Martinez, but he was facing a far weaker opponent. Martinez would have beaten Castillo with ease as well. If the Ortiz-Alexander fight gets made, we’ll see if Alexander has gotten better or not since his loss to Martinez.
The 30-year-old former WBC welterweight champion Ortiz (32-6-2, 25 KOs) is coming off a rate win in stopping 31-year-old journeyman Saul Corral (27-10, 18 KOs) in the 4th round on July 30th in Bakersfield, California. Before that fight, Ortiz had been stopped in the 4th round by Andre Berto in April of 2016.
Ortiz has lost 4 out of his last 7 fights. It’s hard to imagine Ortiz being able to turn his career around at this stage. The zenith of Ortiz’s career came in in 2011 in beating Andre Berto by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the WBC welterweight title. Ortiz lost his WBC title in his next fight to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in getting stopped in the 4th round. It’s been downhill since then with Ortiz losing to Josesito Lopez, Luis Collazo and Berto.
Ortiz is still young at 31, and he’s got excellent punching power to go along with his southpaw stance. If Ortiz could ever improve his punch resistance, and perhaps improve toughness a little, he’d be one of the best welterweights in the division. Unfortunately, it’s not likely Ortiz will ever be able to take a good shot without getting hurt. We saw year that he can’t even be counted on to defeat a faded Berto. Collazo isn’t the same fighter he once was, and he stopped Ortiz in 2 rounds in 2014.
Perhaps with the right trainer, Ortiz could improve his defensive boxing skills enough for him to become a world champion again at 147. That would be a huge career turn around for Ortiz, considering a lot of the boxing fans see Ortiz as basically yesterdays’ news and no longer relevant for the welterweight division.