By Jeff Aranow: Paulie Malignaggi didn’t like the way WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) fought Luis Ortiz (28-1, 24 KOs) last Saturday night in their fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Malignaggi says Wilder gave up too much ground against Ortiz in backing away constantly while he pressuring. Malignaggi thinks that if Wilder had stood his ground and nailed Ortiz with right hand counters while he was coming forward, he would have made the 38-year-old Cuban wary to attack him. Malignaggi feels the fight would have been much easier.
When Wilder did stop moving as much in the 10th round, he landed a big right hand counter that hurt Ortiz. Wilder then dropped him.
“I thought Deontay was losing the fight,” Malignaggi said to Fighthype. “I thought he ran out of ideas too. I thought he should have held his ground and throw counters. He’s got to give Ortiz reason to doubt himself coming forward, because every time Ortiz came forward with any kind of offense, Deontay gave up too much ground. If you give up all your ground, you can’t really counter,” Malignaggi said.
It’s obvious that Wilder was afraid of Ortiz. The moment was too much for Wilder in the first 8 rounds of the fight. Wilder was too timid to take control of the fight. It wasn’t until Ortiz faded in the 9th round that Wilder finally got enough confidence to hit him with a big shot that hurt him towards the end of the round. If Ortiz hadn’t got tired, Wilder would have been still fighting in a fearful way and would have ended up getting beaten soundly.
It wasn’t about the 32-year-old Wilder having run out of ideas against the Cuban Ortiz. Wilder’s biggest issue was he was simply too afraid to throw punches. Wilder got away with knocking Ortiz down with a right hand in the 5th, but when he tried the same trick in the 7th, he ran into a big left hand counter that had him out on his feet for the entire round. Wilder couldn’t stand his ground to fight Ortiz because he probably would have been knocked out if he’d done that earlier in the fight.
I think Deontay waited too long to make Ortiz feel like, ‘I can’t just throw anything at this guy,’ because everything he threw at Deontay, Deontay gave ground. Even though they missed, he was allowing the momentum of the fight to be dictated by Ortiz, who was walking him down,” Malignaggi said. “In the last round, Deontay was on the ropes and he landed a counter right hand and perfectly timed it and that was it. I felt like once he started holding his ground that the fight would end instantly. I did feel like it changed the psychology in the fight for Ortiz,” Malignaggi said.
It’s too bad Malignaggi wasn’t working in Wilder’s corner last Saturday night because he could have encouraged him to be more aggressive against Ortiz. I doubt that it would have done anything to make Wilder fight harder though. The fear was too ingrained with Wilder for him to break out of it.
Ortiz didn’t go after Wilder in the 8th round like he should have. I think Ortiz was tired and afraid to use up the little energy he had left over. He probably should have gone all out at the start of the 8th, because Wilder was still hurt when he came out for the beginning of the round.
“Of course, because he was fighting someone that was actually bringing the fight to him, but he’s a left,” Arreola said about Wilder having a hard time with Ortiz. “There aren’t that many lefties that can do that to him. He’s used to fighting orthodox fighters. So, I don’t see nothing that Joshua will bring that will surprise him. Wilder didn’t just win the fight. He came back and knocked him out,” Arreola said.