LAS VEGAS – Luis Ortiz offered the same complaint Saturday night he made following his first fight against Deontay Wilder.
The Cuban veteran acknowledged Wilder nailed him with a crushing shot that hurt him. Ortiz just wishes referee Kenny Bayless would’ve given him an opportunity to make it to the end of the seventh round.
The 40-year-old Ortiz believes if he had been afforded a chance to finish that seventh round, he could’ve recovered during his one-minute break before the start of the eighth round and regained control of the fight. Ortiz was comfortably in front on all three scorecards (59-55, 59-55, 58-56) when Wilder’s straight right hand knocked him flat on his back, beneath a bottom rope, late in the seventh round.
A disoriented Ortiz managed to make it to his feet before Bayless’ count reached 10. Sensing Ortiz was badly hurt, Bayless waved an end to their scheduled 12-round rematch with nine seconds remaining in the seventh round at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
“My only gripe is,” Ortiz said during the post-fight press conference, “obviously I really feel that being a championship fight, it’s a grudge match and the ref probably could’ve just let it go on. There was eight seconds left, seven seconds left. Let’s see what happens. [I could] recover in the corner. You know, give me the benefit of the doubt. It is what it is now, but I’m very upset that didn’t happen because I’m a fighter. I wanna fight. You know?”
Coincidentally, Wilder was able to survive until the conclusion of the seventh round in their first fight, which enabled him to regain some strength in the eighth and ninth rounds. The unbeaten WBC heavyweight champion eventually floored Ortiz twice more in the 10th round and stopped him in that March 2018 battle at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Ortiz (31-2, 26 KOs, 2 NC) previously disagreed with referee David Fields’ decision to end their first fight. There were 55 seconds to go in the seventh round when Fields kneeled beside Ortiz and waved an end to a bout in which Ortiz had been dropped three times.
A battered, exhausted Ortiz fell to his gloves and knees after Wilder’s wicked right uppercut sent him to the canvas that third time. Before Wilder (42-0-1, 41 KOs) knocked him out again, Ortiz expressed displeasure with Fields’ call.
“I don’t like to lose, especially in that fashion,” Ortiz said. “And to make it very clear, I wasn’t knocked out. I was completely fatigued and [dead] tired. That’s what it was, more than anything else. I would’ve preferred to get knocked out.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.