By Dean Berman: Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz hasn’t yet beaten Deontay Wilder, but he’s already talking about giving him a trilogy fight after they meet for their rematch next Saturday. It’s a good gesture that Ortiz says he would give Wilder a trilogy fight, but it’s not like wouldn’t be forced to.
Ortiz (31-1, 26 KOs) says he’ll be dethroning WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (41-0-1, 40 KOs), and then he’ll return the favor by him a third fight.
Ortiz not mentioning rematch clause
A rematch clause is likely in the contract for this fight . This is a voluntary defense for Wilder, so rematch clauses the norm under those circumstances.
Ortiz and Wilder will meet this Saturday on Fox Sports PBC Pay-Per-View on November 23 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ortiz wants to get even with Wilder for losing to him by a 10th round knockout a year ago in New York.
Wilder will be given trilogy fight if he loses – Ortiz
“It’s going to be very excited to win the championship, and become the first Cuban to be a champion,” said Ortiz. “100 percent, he gave me the fight. It’s not even spoken of,” said Ortiz when asked if he’ll fight him a third time if he beats him next Saturday. In the videos he’s put out, he does look like an improved fighter.
“I would agree, but he still lacks the experience in taking it from a training facility into a fight where someone is trying to take your head off where it’s not as quite as simple as in a controlled gym environment. He’s got to have a Plan-B and C, and if he doesn’t, then that’s going to be an error. I’ve got a Plan-A through Z,” said Ortiz.
The trilogy fight only works if Ortiz wins. If Wilder beats him again, then he’ll move on and close the chapter in his fights with Ortiz. There’s no way that a third fight between Ortiz and Wilder could be sold to the boxing public if Wilder wins the rematch.
There’s already a lot of squawking by boxing fans about Wilder giving Ortiz a needless rematch. They wanted to see Wilder take on other heavyweights like Dillian Whyte, Oscar Rivas, Adam Kownacki, Joe Joyce, Filip Hrgovic, Oleksandr Usyk or Daniel Dubois. Fighting Ortiz again is pointless, but Wilder says he wanted to “bless him” a second time to help him out.
Ortiz has chance to f— this whole thing up – Ellerbe
“The sole focus is Wilder and Ortiz to fight on the 23rd. Ortiz has the opportunity to f— this whole thing up,” said Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe. “what better situation to be in?
“All he’s got to do is focus for 12 rounds, and find a way to win a big a– fight. If he wins the fight, he f—- the whole thing up. He put himself in to have options, and what better position to be the man in the heavyweight division,” said Ellerbe.
What Ellerbe means by saying that Ortiz can “f— this whole thing up” is that he can spoil it for Wilder to get the big money fights against Tyson Fury and the winner of the Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr. rematch. Ortiz isn’t expected to bring in a lot of pay-per-view money on Fox PBC, but it’s a different story with the other fights.
Ortiz, 40, has got to get to Wilder’s chin early like in the first three rounds for him to have a shot at winning. If Ortiz hasn’t knocked out Wilder by the 4th, he’ll likely won’t be around to try and get to him later. This is going to be a much different Wilder on Saturday than we saw in his first fight with Ortiz.
Wilder fought like he was afraid of Ortiz last time through the first four rounds. But once Wilder lost his fear of Ortiz, it was mostly one-sided apart from the 7th round.
Deontay wants to correct mistakes from first Ortiz fight
“It definitely changes a lot as far as preparation, but not so much, because of the first fight, we always go back to the first fight to see what we did right and see what we did wrong,” said Wilder. “A lot of the things we did wrong, we want to correct them. The things we did right, we’re just going to apply for this one as well because it worked for us.
“Being under the conditions I was under, I felt real good, and the performance and how I feel now, it’s like day and night. It’s going to be amazing,” said Wilder.
The 6’7″ Deontay says he wants to use his jab more in the rematch, as he was mostly just throwing lead right hands without setting them up. Wilder would hold left hand out in front of him to measure Ortiz, and then he would let loose with big rights.
Ortiz knew what was coming at all times with Wilder, but he couldn’t get out of the way of the shots often enough to win. In the 7th, Ortiz timed Wilder and hurt him with a counter after he’d thrown a right hand. That was one of the few times that Ortiz countered Wilder’s right hand in the fight, and he did well.
Had Ortiz been able to continue to do that, he would have stood a better chance of winning. However, Wilder’s hand speed was too much for Ortiz to time him correctly. It was no use Ortiz trying to counter Wilder after he’d connect with his right hand, because he was in bad shape after they’d land.
Wilder denies being hurt against Ortiz
“In the 7th round, he [Ortiz] buzzed me. A lot of people say, he hurt me, because they don’t understand the difference,” said Wilder about his fight last year against Ortiz. “They can’t differentiate between being hurt and being buzzed, because they’ve never experienced it.
“I was highly buzzed, and with my experience of being in the ring, and dealing with different situations, and preparation for the fight, it allowed me to talk to myself, my inner self, ‘you got it.’ But it was an amazing fight the first time, and it’s going to be an amazing fight this time. I can’t wait,” said Wilder.
Deontay wasn’t badly hurt by Ortiz in the 7th, but he buzzed to the point where the referee could have stopped it. Wilder doesn’t realize that it doesn’t matter that he wasn’t badly hurt. The fight could have been stopped by the referee, and there would have been nothing he could have done about it. If Wilder wasn’t the WBC heavyweight champion, it’s possible that the fight would have been stopped.