By Jake Donovan
The fight with Bryant Jennings was never going to happen if random drug testing wasn’t available. Luis Ortiz understood this going in, also well aware that - given his failed drug test just one year ago - just about any other notable heavyweight will now demand the same pre-fight terms.
Those looking for that little bit of leverage prior to agreeing to face the unbeaten southpaw from Miami by way of Cuba might be in for a disappointment - Ortiz is fine with random drug testing, in fact ready to embrace it for all fights moving forward.
"I have no problem proving that I’m clean,” Ortiz told BoxingScene.com following the biggest win of his career, a 7th round knockout of Jennings on Dec. 19th at Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, New York. “I’ve always been clean and will do (random testing) for any fight."
The services of the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA) were utilized to monitor pre-fight random drug testing for the heavyweight battle, which served as HBO’s final main event of an active 2015 boxing season.
The fight marked Ortiz’ third ring appearance on the year – all coming in the span of six months upon his ring return. The previous nine months were spent serving a suspension for having failed a drug test in a 1st round knockout-turned-No-Contest with Lateef Kayode last September.
Denial was the first instinct to kick in for Ortiz upon learning he tested positive for nandrolone. Even to this day, he refers to himself as having “always been a clean fighter”, suggesting that he still doesn’t claim responsibility for what took place over a year ago.
His handlers know that he’s come full circle in that regard, though. It was the only way they would stand behind him, after all.
“The thing is, we knew what we had in Ortiz,” points out Bernard Hopkins, the legendary former two-division champ who is a managing partner in Golden Boy Promotions. “There are guys, they have all the talent in the world, but the stuff that goes bad – it defines who they are and the ones you don’t want to waste your time on.
“Then you get those – yeah, sometimes something happens, but it’s a mistake. You know that somehow, someway they can move on from it, learn from it and know what they got to do to make it right. That’s who we have in Luis Ortiz. We needed to know that he knows it, before letting him know that we’re all the way with him.”
Standing tall with the 6’4” heavyweight also meant hearing his side before moving forward.
“The first thing, even before the suspension we told him that he had to own up to it, admit that he (messed) up and accept whatever punishment comes from it,” Hopkins revealed to BoxingScene.com, though not without drawing a colorful comparison. “It’s like, you have a partner, you’re together for years. You come home one day and you find your partner in bed bare-ass naked.
“You know they did some foul (stuff) in there, but you don’t want to throw away years of love. So you just want to know they never gonna do it again. That’s basically the conversation we had with Luis. We know what we got. We just needed to know what he did, wanted him to admit that he did something stupid and that it ain’t ever gonna happen again.”
Ortiz (24-0, 21KOs) has no problem providing such assurances. His best effort to prove his innocence came as early as the days immediately learning of his positive test. His team had him provide another sample, which came back negative.
That was the good news. The bad news was that while it came the day after the Nevada State Athletic Commission test result was relayed back to his team, it also came three weeks after the fight, which proved little in the grand scheme of things.
Given that, Ortiz was well aware that every move he made upon his ring return would be placed under a microscope. Two wins into his comeback, the opportunity came – in fact resurfaced – to face Jennings at year’s end. Jennings’ team previously declined an offer to face Ortiz in October, before agreeing to terms for a December clash.
One of the demands made by the Philadelphia-based heavyweight was pre-fight random drug testing, conducted by VADA. Ortiz was all the way on board, tested several times throughout camp and again at the end of the fight.
So determined was the unbeaten heavyweight to prove that he was clean that he declined to take so much as cough medicine after being dealt an untimely battle with the flu bug. It came roughly two weeks before the fight, just after the Thanksgiving holiday. He did his best to battle through the tail end of his training camp, before spending most of Fight Week resting up outside of mandated media sessions such as the final pre-fight press conference and the weigh-in.
He could have taken prescription medicine for his ailment and have simply disclosed it with the VADA reps at some point during testing. Instead, he took his chances, riding out the flu rather than running the risk of not being 100% sure what was going into his body.
“It just goes to show how tough this man really is,” longtime trainer Herman Caicedo pointed out to BoxingScene.com. “A lot of other fighters, they’d have either pulled out, or found a shortcut to get better. Luis is on a mission to prove he’s the best heavyweight in the world. This was his test before being tested in the ring. He survived one of the worst things that can happen during training camp and look how well he performed.”
Ortiz delivered a tour-de-force performance, rocking Jennings – a previous World heavyweight championship title contender – on at least two earlier occasions before eventually delivering a highlight reel 7th round knockout win in his HBO debut.
There will be plenty more to come, as Ortiz - who was coughing uncontrollably at fight's end while speang with media - is ready to conquer the world, or at least anyone in it who weighs 201 lbs. or more. He will do so while holding himself to the same standards he expects to be held by his divisional peers – campaigning for a cleaner sport.
His first full experience with random drug testing was enough to convince him it’s the only way moving forward.
“It’s fine. Really, the worst thing about it is when they show up at 5:00 a.m. to take samples,” Ortiz laughs at the minor discomforts that come with such commitment. “I really have no problem with random testing whatsoever. I want all of the best heavyweights moving forward. In being the best, it’s important the world knows that we are all clean fighters.”
Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
