PBC’s and Showtime’s big card from the Barclay’s Center featuring the highly anticipated heavyweight title showdown between Deontay Wilder and Luis Ortiz has actually concluded without the fight being canceled. Deontay Wilder picked up a tenth round stoppage to defend his title in a back and forth fight. Jose Uzcategui also retired Andre Dirrell in the co-main event.
“King Kong” Luis Ortiz (28-1, 24 KOs) definitely had the sharper jab in a first round that was defined by the two men’s jabs. Ortiz narrowly missed a beautiful left hand counter at the round’s close that could have spelled trouble for Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) too. He controlled the second round even more comfortably, mostly behind straight lefts to the body. At this point in the fight Deontay Wilder was getting nothing done whatsoever. The two played patty cake for most of the third round, but Ortiz landed the only shots of note to the body.
I expressed in the preview that I was worried this would be a dull fight and certainly had been after its first quarter. The fourth round was the first in the fight where it took some thought to score at least. Wilder opened with his first real right hands of the fight in its first minute, but King Kong got his own work in slowly in the last two thirds of the frame.
Luis was on route to dominating another round in the fifth when he got too brave and the ungodly power of Deontay Wilder put him on roller skates and to the canvas. Finally he was on the board. The Bronze Bomber pumped his right hand well to start the sixth round. He clearly gained a ton of confidence with that right hand. The whole fight opened up in this round. Ortiz got a nice shot in towards the end, but Wilder carried the, well, wilder round.
Going into the second half of the fight, I had Luis up two rounds but only one point thanks to the knockdown. The seventh round was not nearly as eventful until the final minute when it very suddenly was. Wilder landed some nice shots to control the first two minutes, but he was countered big and hurt late. Ortiz straight up beat the holy hell out of Wilder for the last thirty seconds to take a very important round. I thought he was near a finish. The eighth wasn’t as dramatic, but it was tense as King King stalked a very inactive Deontay Wilder around the ring and landed a few nice lefts.
The Cuban title challenger looked exhausted in the corner going into the ninth round despite his success. Deontay managed to re-establish himself a bit against his tired foe too with a good right hand late. In a round where little else happened, that carried it. A lot happened in the tenth though. Both man landed nice right hands that wobbled one another, but Luis Ortiz was much more hurt. Wilder made a big mistake of throwing him to the ground that bought the Cuban some time, but it didn’t matter. A sequence of wild but huge shots put Luis Ortiz down two more times, finishing on an uppercut that crumpled him to stop the fight.
Deontay Wilder knocked out Luis Ortiz in one hell of a tense fight tonight. He answered some serious questions about his heart and chin along the way too. His power is very, very real and carried the day in the end yet again. I am glad my worries of a tedious fight did not play out until the end.
Post-fight Wilder credited Ortiz for his work, said he wasn’t really hurt in the seventh, and eventually said he is ready for Anthony Joshua.
The co-main event was delayed initially as the New York State Athletic Commission investigated what was reportedly blood in the urine sample of Jose Uzcategui (27-2, 23 KOs). It was eventually allowed to go on, however. This is strange to me as I can’t imagine blood in the urine ever being harmless enough to go allow a man to fight afterward, but I suppose I am not a doctor. The time was after 9:30 before the opening bell finally rang.
As for the fight itself, Jose Uzcategui dominated the opening two rounds. Andre Dirrell (26-3, 16 KOs) got some good work in the first round, but his Venezuelan opponent definitely got him on volume and body work. The second wasn’t really competitive at all as the Flint fighter looked shaky while Uzcategui popped him at will. The third was much more competitive and I nearly scored it for Andre, but he was hurt with a body shot basically at the bell and I shifted it back to Jose.
Uzcategui put a quick end to any sort of momentum shift with an excellent fourth round. He even started to begin to out jab Andre Dirrell in the round. Uzi’s pace slowed in the fifth, but he still pressured and got more work done. The sixth was again closer with Dirrell getting some nice lefts in behind his jabs finally. I scored it for him, but I also wonder if I wasn’t being a bit too generous in doing so.
Andre Dirrell’s face was well marked up going into the second half of the fight. He came out using his legs a lot more too, but probably ended up losing another narrow round. Things were so dire at this point that Virgil Hunter was already telling Dirrell that he needed a stoppage coming into the eighth. It was his opponent that came out looking for one in the first minute, however. A war broke out. In it Andre got some great work done, but Uzcategui ripped him apart. His corner discussed stopping the fight afterward while the fighter objected. The camera pulled away during the argument and I am not sure who made the final decision, but in the end Dirrell was pulled out of the fight. Jose Uzcategui has stopped Andre Dirrell for his career best win.
Post-fight Uzcategui called out Caleb Truax and then David Benavidez. With the win he picked up a secondary version of Truax’s belt and “unification” makes sense accordingly.
