I will remain skeptical that it won’t be canceled up until the opening bell, but Deontay Wilder’s hotly anticipated WBC heavyweight title defense against highly regarded Cuban contender Luis Ortiz is upon us come Saturday night. The co-main event on the Showtime broadcast is also a good one. Andre Dirrell and Jose Uzcategui will rematch their literal riot inducing fight from last May to open the show.
When Deontay Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) medaled in the 2008 Olympics, it was a really surprising result. Really, Wilder being there at all was surprising given that the ex-basketball player managed to win his Olympic qualifiers despite only having twenty one fights to his name. Yet, not only did he qualify, but he brought home the bronze that gives him “The Bronze Bomber” nickname.
Given that he was a novice even at the amateur level and that he was so thin that he barely was a heavyweight at all despite his 6’7″ frame, it was no surprise that Deontay Wilder was brought up extremely slowly in the professional ranks. While he can still occasionally look less than professional with a wild haymaker a few times a fight, back then that was all he had at all. Still, it was enough against the club fighters that the Alabama was knocking over. He didn’t even see a third round until his eighteenth fight.
The borderline non-existent competition level gave Wilder the team he needed to become a quality professional in the gym, but it did him and his team no favors with the American audience for a while. American fight fans are used to seeing fighters come up against nothing competition for fifteen fights or so before beginning a slow progression up the rankings until they are contenders or titleholders around fight twenty. Wilder instead was approaching fight thirty before he fought anyone with any name recognition at all. Even then, the likes of Audley Harrison and Sergei Liakhovich were known to be badly faded anyway.
It wasn’t until The Bronze Bomber’s thirty third fight that we found him in with a top contender in well regarded Haitian titleholder Bermane Stiverne. Wilder would lift his WBC belt that night with a measured boxing performance that no one really could have known he was capable of delivering. Stiverne that night remains the only man to make it the distance with the fearsome puncher. Wilder has defended his belt six times since then, including most recently a first round knockout of Stiverne in their rematch. His competition isn’t terrible like it was before, but a combination of mediocre match making and canceled big fights have left Deontay without an opportunity for another signature win.
Luis Ortiz (28-0, 24 KOs) was one of those canceled big fights when he popped for steroids in the build up. It was the second failed test of his career, but the WBC doesn’t seem to care if Deontay Wilder wants the fight. Luis Ortiz first came into our fight fan lives as a rising Golden Boy fighter on their since defunct Fox Sports 1 series. It was his back to back HBO knockout wins over then top contenders Bryant Jennings and Tony Thompson, however, that really launched King Kong to the top of the building.
Yet, at that point Ortiz began fighting with his team at Golden Boy Promotions. He eventually bought his contract out and became a free agent. The technical and powerful Cuban was a difficult fighter for a powerful promoter like Golden Boy to find opponents for. Without even that much, Ortiz has largely been frozen out of the picture for the last few years. Since that early 2016 knockout of Tony Thompson, Luis Ortiz has only fought three times against subpar competition. He is now 38 years old.
Ortiz still represents a huge step up for Deontay Wilder though. Really, they do for each other. Ortiz is maybe the most technically skilled top heavyweight thanks to his time spent with the legendary Cuban amateur program. He is a huge southpaw with an epic reach that knows how to set up his shots. He also isn’t slow for his size. Wilder, conversely, may have more one shot power in his right hand than anyone since Tyson, but he can still be quite crude. As terrifying as his demolitions can be, he is often wide open during them. Certainly Luis Ortiz is capable of finding something big in between those reckless shots, but then again he needs to be able to stand up to them to do so. That dilemma is what makes this fight so fascinating.
I do wonder how good of a fight this will actually be, however. In Wilder’s entire career, he has felt threatened in the ring once. He fought Bermane Stiverne with a ton of respect in their first fight by using his length on the outside to box to a decision instead of looking for the knockout. I think we can look for him to do the same against Luis Ortiz. Ortiz, for his part, isn’t a high volume guy. In fact, he often loses rounds in fights he is otherwise dominating because he just doesn’t let his hands go. Inactive and 38 now, he will probably have even fewer punches to put out per round. I am worried this fight will be twelve rounds of Wilder circling behind his jab and tentative straight rights while King Kong plods after him not punching. I hope I am wrong, but that is what I see when these otherwise exciting styles come together.
In the co-main event, Andre Dirrell (26-2, 18 KOs) and Jose Uzcategui (26-2, 22 KOs) will meet in a rematch of their highly eventful fight from May of 2017. The power punching Colombian dominated that fight early, clearly bothering his Michigan opponent with his power. He did at one point get warned for hitting after the bell though. Dirrell found his footing, however, and was taking control of the fight when Jose kept a combination going after the bell for the second time in the fight. This time he knocked Dirrell out and got himself disqualified.
Tempers flared post fight and a riot broke out in the ring. Andre Dirrell’s uncle and trainer Leon Lawson Jr infamously took a cheap shot against Jose Uzcategui by sneaking a right hook right on the fighter’s chin. It wasn’t a good decision. Not only did he turn the villain into the victim and get himself tossed from the sport, but the shot had embarrassingly little impact for how clean and unseen it was. I enjoyed the style matchup in the first fight and the post fight drama was entertaining despite its ridiculousness. I am looking forward to the rematch.
Showtime will have the card starting at 9 PM Eastern.
