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WBC Heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s next fight will be a rematch against Cuban Luis Ortiz. The fight has been agreed upon by both sides with only the date and venue still undetermined.
Wilder vs Ortiz Part 2
It can be recalled that Wilder and Ortiz first fought on April 2018 in a bout that was fairly competitive until the fateful 10th round where the Bronze Bomber knocked out King Kong. The win gave Wilder a seventh straight successful defense of the WBC heavyweight championship.
After that bout, Wilder and lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury fought to a disputed draw on December 1, 2018, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Then the Bronze Bomber obliterated Dominic Breazeale in a mere 137 seconds last May 18th at Barclays Center in New York to once again retain his WBC belt. Wilder was widely believed to be headed to a rematch with Fury but after the latter signed a promotional deal with ESPN, things got complicated and in the end, the road led back to Ortiz who gave Wilder a tough fight before going out.
For his part, Ortiz has fought three times since suffering the first defeat of his career. King Kong knocked out Romania’s Razvan Conjanu in two rounds four months after getting knocked out by the Bronze Bomber. Ortiz then scored a 10th round stoppage of Travis Kauffman on the same night Fury rose from the dead against Wilder. Then last March, the Cuban fighter won an uninspiring 12-round unanimous decision over former European heavyweight champion Christian Hammer.
Bronze Bomber
Deontay Wilder is the WBC heavyweight champion and is the first American-born heavyweight champion since Shannon Briggs in 2004. Wilder won the title by defeating Bermane Stiverne in 2015. Since then, he’s successfully defended the belt an impressive nine times.
Known for his otherworldly punching power, Wilder is known as the Bronze Bomber, in reference to his bronze medal win at the 2008 Olympics. He has finished all but two of his total fights inside the distance and his knockout rate is 97.5% with a total of 20 first round knockouts. His exploits have led to him winning the Premier Boxing Champions Knockout of the Year in 2016 and 2017.
Wilder is a massive 6-7 with a reach of 83 inches. The 33-year old from Tuscaloosa in Alabama has an undefeated record of 41-0-1 with 39 knockouts. Only Fury in their December 2018 bout and Stiverne during Wilder’s title-winning fight have gone the distance with Wilder.
Real King Kong
Luis Ortiz is a former interim WBA heavyweight champion. He won that title by knocking out little known Matias Ariel Vidondo of Argentina in 2015. In 2017, Ortiz was flagged by the doping agency VADA after testing positive for a high blood pressure medicine that is used as a masking agent for PEDs. He was subsequently suspended for six months due to the violation.
Ortiz has been dubbed as the bogeyman of the heavyweight division because both champions and top contenders were said to be avoiding him like a plague. Although Ortiz was getting up there in age, he possessed the one-punch knockout power that could end fights in a split second.
The Real King Kong has a record of 31-1 with 2 no-contests. Ortiz has a total of 26 wins by way of knockout and the only blot in his boxing resume was the knockout loss to Wilder which to this day, he still protests because as he said, he could have continued after getting knocked down. Ortiz is 6-3 and has a reach of 78 inches while fighting as a southpaw.
Who Wins?
When you take a look at the boxing betting odds for this rematch, Deontay Wilder is such a heavy favorite over Luis Ortiz. Wilder survived a near-knockdown in Round 7 and came back to stop Ortiz cold in his tracks during the 10th round of their first bout. Wilder also nearly knocked out Tyson Fury and dropped the lineal champion twice during their December bout which ended in a draw. Then last month, Wilder served notice when he decimated Dominic Breazeale with a one-punch knockout inside round one.
Looking at their first fight though, Luis Ortiz gave Wilder all sorts of trouble before the Bronze Bomber found a home for his deadly right hand. Ortiz won four out of the first nine rounds including a 10-8 round 7 where Wilder almost went down. Unfortunately for the Cuban, Wilder survived the toughest round of his career and was able to recover. It appeared that Ortiz had expended too much energy going for the kill that he ran out of gas. As always, Wilder needed just one big right hand to end the fight.
According to Compubox numbers, Wilder out-landed Ortiz 98-87 in total punches landed. However, Wilder had a huge 33-6 total punches landed edge in the final two rounds of the fight, meaning Ortiz out-landed him through round 8. Ortiz had the advantage in total power punches landed at 63 to 60 but 55% of Wilder’s total power punches landed in the last two rounds including 30% in the final round. Overall, Ortiz landed 43% of his power punches on Wilder, the highest percentage landed on the Bronze Bomber by any opponent.
The point is this: Luis Ortiz outboxed Deontay Wilder for 8 rounds. He won four out of the first nine rounds of the fight and was trailing 85-84 in the scorecards when the fight was halted. That was by no means an easy win by Deontay Wilder. That was his biggest test up to that point and I say that because Fury outboxed Wilder even more. However, Wilder’s punching power saved him in both fights. He knocked out Ortiz in their first bout and he dropped Tyson Fury twice. Take out those knockdowns and knockout and the WBC belt would either be in Cuba or England.
But this is what makes Deontay Wilder special. He’s a puncher’s puncher who has a chance to win any bout because of that bomb of a right hand. There is no question he is the best knockout artist we’ve ever seen in the sport. But he is beatable because he can easily be outboxed. We saw Ortiz and Fury do that in two out of his last three fight. But the question is can Ortiz avoid that right hand in this rematch?
Ortiz was 39 when he fought Wilder in 2018. He is 40 years old now. If Wilder could stop a 39-year old Ortiz, what more for a 40-year old version of him? As for Wilder’s boxing, I don’t think he’ll ever be a good boxer. But he can throw jabs and in his first bout against Stiverne, he proved he can go 12 rounds and win. I think Ortiz will try to be less aggressive this time around and he will try to conserve his energy. I don’t think Ortiz will knock out Wilder but he can outpoint him. That said, I don’t know if Ortiz can stand Wilder’s right hand when it connects. Prediction: Deontay Wilder by knockout, again
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