By Steve Kim
Right now, finding an opponent for heavyweight contender Luis Ortiz is becoming mission impossible for Golden Boy Promotions, which hopes to showcase him on March 5th on HBO.
"It's been very difficult, we've been through a good ten opponents, nobody wants to fight him,'' said Golden Boy's matchmaker Robert Diaz on Friday morning."There are some who will say - 'Yeah,I want to fight him but you gotta pay me a million dollars.' It's a nicer way of saying - 'no, I wont fight him'
"It's never been easy, remember Bryant Jennings turned him down originally for one fight saying that the money wasn't enough. Then then he took the fight the second time when we did it in December. But it's been difficult but I don't blame them."
Oritz stopped Jennings in seven rounds on December 19th to improve his record to 24-0(21 KO's). Currently the Cuban southpaw holds the interim WBA heavyweight title.
It was thought that late last week that Alexander Dmitrenko would take this assignment but Diaz tells BoxingScene.com - "I started getting a feeling when we wouldn't get the contract back. There was an issue and I spoke directly to the manager and the manager said that they wanted an advance, non-refundable, in case he got injured. That right there is a red flag.
"So I wasn't comfortable. I talked with Eric Gomez (V.P. of Golden Boy) and we decided that we could give him part of the advance now and the other part once he arrived in (Washington) D.C. and they wanted the full advance and didn't want to be responsible if they were injured to reimburse us."
So Golden Boy continues to search far and wide to find Ortiz an opponent.
"He's been training hard, it's not his fault,"said Diaz. "He wants to fight, everyone's been waiting for him to come back and fight. He's willing to fight anyone and he's shown it by saying - 'yes, just get an opponent, get me a date.' Now it's our job to make it happen and have the support of HBO."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.