Deontay Wilder is shopping around for his next fight – set to take place, possibly, in November – and he may have found a most marketable and exciting opponent in dangerous Cuban southpaw Luis Ortiz.
Speaking with Premier Boxing Champions, the unbeaten WBC heavyweight king spoke about how Ortiz, also unbeaten, is a fighter other heavyweights are afraid of. But “The Bronze Bomber,” who said Ortiz is known as a “Boogeyman,” insists he does not in any way shape or form scare him.
“My coming back, I would love to have the Ortiz fight,” Wilder said. “I would love to have that and get that going. Ortiz is considered the “Boogeyman” of the sport, whatever that means. I’m the one that’s calling him out. I’m the one that wants to see him in that ring, and I do mean soon. If you’re the “Boogeyman” of the sport, if people are scared to fight you, let me tell you who ain’t.”
There seems to be no doubt Wilder means it when he says he wants Ortiz, but what about the WBC champ’s mandatory obligation to Bermane Stiverne, the man he has already beaten? No, nobody really wants to see that rematch and no, no way is Wilder-Stiverne II as good or as exciting a match-up as Wilder-Ortiz is, but if the WBC continue to insist on Wilder fighting Stiverne again then his hands are tied.
Maybe Wilder will have to get Stiverne out of the way (and, as good a fighter as he is, or was, Stiverne would be expected to lose if he did box a return with the man who widely out-pointed him seemingly an age ago now) and then get in the ring with “Boogeyman” Ortiz.
This fight, should it take place, would practically guarantee both action and, one way or the other, a KO. It would also be a fight that would give both heavyweight punchers their biggest career test to date. Let’s hope it happens, as Wilder says, soon.
