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By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Welcome to Deontay Wilder’s world, where you’re simultaneously an applauded risk-taker headed toward a truly dangerous fight and a well-promoted opportunist preying on a vulnerable veteran who’s neither as good nor young as advertised.
However you view Wilder, the result of his fight Saturday night against Luis Ortiz will help prove what you’ve been saying, posting and/or Tweeting up until this important point in his heavily scrutinized career.
That Wilder is boxing’s best heavyweight, avoided by British cash cow Anthony Joshua and his promoter, Eddie Hearn, for good reason. Or that he was an undefeated fraud fed a steady diet of C-level heavyweights until he finally fought someone remotely threatening.
Whatever occurs when Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) squares off against Ortiz (28-0, 24 KOs, 2 NC) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, count on one of the most polarizing people in boxing eliciting strong reactions from his supporters and detractors alike.
Wilder’s defenders will argue that Ortiz was the most imposing opponent who wanted to fight the supremely confident knockout artist. They could make a compelling case for praising Wilder’s willingness to legitimately test himself because Ortiz – his age and comparative inactivity notwithstanding – possesses a combination of experience, intelligence, skill and power Wilder hasn’t encountered.
Even his harshest critics should admit Ortiz is Wilder’s toughest test to date, a pure puncher capable of upsetting Wilder, especially early in their scheduled 12-round fight. But some of them consider this supposedly 38-year-old version of Ortiz to be less of a threat than the seemingly unbeatable beast that tore through Bryant Jennings in December 2015, the same Jennings who was competitive during a unanimous-decision defeat to Wladimir Klitschko in his previous fight.
“He can’t win,” promoter Lou DiBella told BoxingScene.com regarding Wilder before a press conference Thursday in Manhattan. “That’s why I wouldn’t necessarily have done this fight with Ortiz, because people are such a**holes. But let’s be honest about something – there’s nobody out there that wanted to fight Luis Ortiz. Nobody!
“And particularly right now, after the controversies that have occurred, it’s an easy way out to say, ‘I’m not gonna fight him. Why should I fight him after all this stuff?’ Deontay’s not saying that. Deontay went in the opposite direction. ‘I don’t give a sh*t about all that stuff. Make the fight! I wanna prove that I’m the best.’ ”
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Wilder would’ve been well within his right to fight someone other than Ortiz on Saturday night. Even if you believe their November 4 fight was canceled strictly because Ortiz failed to properly fill out the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association’s paperwork prior to PED testing, Ortiz and his handlers are the only ones to blame for that ordeal.
The WBC’s removal of Ortiz from that fight marked the third time in 16 months that Wilder needed a replacement for an opponent due to a PED-related issue. It would’ve been unfair to criticize Wilder for ignoring Ortiz after going through that frustration a third time.
Since Joshua wasn’t interested in fighting him next, Wilder very easily could’ve made an optional title defense against American Dominic Breazeale. The Tuscaloosa, Alabama, native, DiBella and others could’ve used the Wilder-Breazeale brawl a year ago in the lobby of a Birmingham hotel to promote a grudge match and continued calling out Joshua once Wilder beat Breazeale (19-1, 17 KOs).
A determined Wilder insisted on rescheduling his fight against Ortiz.
“I say I’m the best,” Wilder said during the press conference. “They see he the best. And this is what boxing’s all about, the best fighting the best. And I couldn’t see it no other way. People would say, ‘Why you blessed him? Why you fighting him again?’ I didn’t have to fight this fight. I had all the excuses in the world after the first one [got canceled] to run away from this fight. Easy. I could’ve fought anybody.
“You know, we’ve got a lot of great Americans coming up. I could’ve fought any one of those guys, easy – easy. But I said, ‘Nah, I’m still gonna bless him with the opportunity because I feel he’s the best and I say I’m the best.’ I know I’m the best and I wanna prove to everybody that I am the best heavyweight in the world, the baddest man on the planet.”
Wilder’s critics – and there’s an enormous army of them – don’t consider Ortiz to be the huge step up in competition they once would’ve acknowledged. They won’t be all that impressed even if Wilder obliterates Ortiz.
They’ll tell you that Ortiz hasn’t looked like an elite heavyweight, certainly not “King Kong,” since demolishing Jennings and aged former contender Tony Thompson in back-to-back bouts over a three-month stretch from December 2015 to March 2016.
Since then, Ortiz went 12 rounds with Malik Scott, a below-average puncher Wilder knocked out in the first round. Ortiz also stopped two overmatched journeymen – David Allen and Daniel Martz – since going the distance with Scott.
Inactivity could hurt Ortiz, too. He has fought just once in the nearly 15 months before he’ll face Wilder, and that bout amounted to a second-round knockout of Martz (16-6-1, 13 KOs) on December
Then, of course, there’s Ortiz’s age. He is listed at 38, six years older than Wilder.
Like many Cuban athletes, though, there’s doubt about the birth date Ortiz lists. Like Joe Louis from the barbershop scene in “Coming to America,” Ortiz seemingly gets older by the minute if you listen to the skeptics picking apart Wilder’s choice of opponent.
Wilder claims he doesn’t care what the cynics think.
“I don’t need people to believe in me,” Wilder said. “I don’t need no one to say what I can and can’t do, because it’s not up to you guys. It’s not up to nobody but myself. If I don’t believe in myself, then I can’t convince others to believe in me. I can’t lead America to say, ‘Get behind me and believe in me and this and that,’ and I don’t show it.
“Each and every time I’ve gotten on this podium, each and every time I’ve got in the ring, under the big lights, under the big cameras, I’ve presented beauty to the ring. And I’ve given y’all what y’all wanted to see each and every time y’all came and dressed and looked so good that night of the fight. I’ve given y’all those knockouts that you wanna see.”
If Wilder delivers yet another knockout Saturday night, he’ll either have legitimized himself as a heavyweight champion or not quite. Others will argue Wilder won’t have proven much more than he did by beating Bermane Stiverne twice, Gerald Washington, Chris Arreola, Artur Szpilka, Johann Duhaupas and Eric Molina.
It’ll all depend on whether you ask a supporter or a detractor of one of the most polarizing people in boxing.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
Wilder vs. Ortiz
Luis Ortiz