Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz came in at 236.5 lbs and looked in best shape in years for his title challenge against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. Ortiz will have 17-lb weight advantage over Wilder (41-0-1, 40 KOs), who weighed in at 219.5 lbs.
Ortiz’s weight if 5 lbs. less than the 241 lbs that he weighed for his fight against Wilder last year in March 2018. ‘King Kong’ Ortiz looks like he’s taken off a lot of excess fat, and put on muscle since the last time the two fought. His weight only partially tells the story, because he’s carrying around a lot less fat than he did before.
Ortiz’s stamina failed him in the previous fight with Wilder when he gassed out after the 7th round. Ortiz had Wilder hurt in the 7th, but he could close the show despite landing a lot of heavy blows in the round.
Ortiz will be getting a guaranteed purse of $1.5 million, but his purse is expected to be close to $7 million for the fight. That’s not bad for the Cuban talent, who was given the title shot by Wilder in a voluntary defense. Wilder wanted to bless Ortiz a second time to help him out.
“This time he knows what it’s going to be, he knows what happened the first time and what will happen the second time. He looked good though,” Wilder said at the weigh-in. “On Saturday night, I will have no mercy for him when I’m ready to do what I do. We know what’s coming but we don’t know when it’s coming. When it does, bang, goodnight! Don’t blink, it’s going to be an amazing fight.”
Leo Santa Cruz came in at 129.5 lbs, while his opponent Miguel Flores weighed in at 130lb. The two will have the WBA Super World 130-lb title that they’ll be fighting over.
WBA super bantamweight champion Brandon Figueroa weighed in at 122 lbs, but his opponent Julio Ceja weighed 4.5 lbs over the limit at 126.5. Something obviously went VERY wrong for the 27-year-old Ceja during training camp for him to miss weight by such a high amount.
WBC bantamweight champion silver bantamweight champion Luis Nery (30-0, 24 KOs) weighed in at 119 lbs for his fight against Manny Rodriguez (19-1, 12 KOs). Nery has 2 hours to lose the pound. It’s unusual for a Freddie Roach trained fighter to miss weight, but Nery has been having problems making the bantamweight limit since last year. That’s how he lost his WBC title when he failed to make weight in his rematch with Shinsuke Yamanaka.
Other weights on the Wilder vs. Ortiz 2 undercard:
Leduan Barthelemy 127 vs Eduardo Ramirez 126.5
Viktor Slavinksyi 127.5 vs Rigoberto Hermosillo 127
Arnold Alejandro 129.5 vs Jhon Gemino 129.5
Ángel Alejandro 130.5 vs Mark Yap 132
Omar Juarez 142.5 vs Kevin Shacks 141
Jose Manuel Gomez 130 vs Daniel Placeres 129.5
Marsellos Wilder 197 vs Dustin Long 198.5
Shin Mondragón 121 vs Juan Centeno 122
Vito Mielnicki 147 vs Marklin Bailey 143.5
