By Jeff Aronow: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s powerful right hand bailed out big time on Saturday night with him coming from a huge deficit to knockout challenger Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz (31-2, 26 KOs) in the 7th round in their rematch at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Wilder’s right hand power is just unreal. Anything that he touches with that shot is going to go to sleep, and Ortiz wasn’t immune to it. Deontay’s victory tonight was his 10th title defense, and his 41st knockout of his 11-year pro career. His record now is 42-0-1, 41 knockouts.
Wilder says he wants to break Floyd Mayweather’s 50-0 record by going 51-0 with 50 knockouts. He may need to stick around a little longer, because Mayweather is making a comeback in 2020, and he intends on fighting twice.
The 40-year-old Cuban southpaw Ortiz dominated the first six rounds of the fight, appearing to blank the knockout artist Wilder. It looked like Ortiz was heading towards an easy victory when he got greedy, and backed Wilder up against the ropes.
Wilder then caught Ortiz with a powerful right hand that sent him down hard on the canvas. Referee Kenny Bayless then stopped the fight. The time of the stoppage was at 2:51 of round 7.
Ortiz was fighting such a great fight in boxing, and playing it conversatively. It was difficult for Wilder to find openings in Ortiz’s guard because he wasn’t being overly aggressive like he’d been in their first fight in March of 2018.
Wilder was so timid, and gun-shy of throwing his right hand in the first six rounds. It wasn’t an act with Wilder. He looked generally terrified of throwing a right hand for fear of being countered by Ortiz like what happened last year in the 7th. You can argue that Wilder lost the first six rounds of the fight, and was putting himself in the same position he was in when he was held to a 12 round draw against Tyson Fury last December.
Wilder would’t throw his right hand, and it almost looked like he had an injury. That wasn’t the case. His body language had fear written all over it, and he looked uncoordinated. Ortiz was clearly the far more skilled fighter of the two. The thing that Ortiz lacked was a chin, size and youth to take full advantage of Wilder’s lack of aggression.
It was another great win for Wilder. Next up is a rematch against Fury (29-0-1, 20 KOs) on February 22.
All Results:
Deontay Wilder KO 7 Luis Ortiz
Leo Santa Cruz W PTS 12 Miguel Flores
Brandon Figueroa Draw Julio Ceja
Omar Juarez W KO 6 Kevin Shacks
Eduardo Ramirez TKO 4 Leduan Barthelemy
John Gemino TKO 5 Arnold Alejandro
Vito Mielnicki Jr TKO 2 Marklin Bailey
Dustin Long TKO 4 Marsellos Wilder
Viktor Slavinskyi UD 6 Rigoberto Hermosillo
Angel Alejandro UD 6 Mark John Yap
José Manuel Gómez TKO 3 Daniel Placeres