Is Deontay Wilder’s first win over Luis Ortiz overrated?

Fury had his career best performance in Wilder II. How can he have been SHOT in Wilder I? That makes zero sense.

Wallin is only the second prime threat Joshua has got in with. Wallin gave Prime ATG Fury absolute hell, no one but Wilder has put it on Fury like that.

 

I think it was a decent win. He got hurt and came back and won and carried his power in the second half of the fight against the best person he fought

 

It was a pretty good win over a motivated and dangerous opponent. That being said had the ring doc not checked Wilder at the start of the 8th round Ortiz could’ve finished him off.

 

Somewhere between slightly and massively overrated.

Ortiz was a decent win, the sort of fight that should be a baseline for a belt holder, as Wilder was, but absolutely not a career defining win.

The reason I consider it substantially overrated is simply that Ortiz wasn't an avoided bogeyman and never had anywhere near the resume to justify claims he was a top 5 level fighter.

 

I'm not a fan of Wilder but it's a good win Ortiz was 28-0 a Southpaw and rated a top 5 Heavyweight at the time i believe. Yeah Ortiz's resume isn't nothing to write home about but who's is now regarding the Heavyweights ? i'd say a good win and not overrated.

But Wilder still needs a few more solid wins Parker is a step in the right direction especially if he stops him.

 

Glad someone mentioned this. Boxing fans were in meltdown following that doctor interference.

That fight has a massive asterisk against it.

Now it's all great win for Wilder...
Memories of goldfish

 

That's one thing many claim, how avoided Ortiz was. But the question is, was he really? Who avoided him and was it over money, or did they fight someone else on equal to close footing?

His resume suggests he hasn't really done much more than anyone else who was top ten. And that's not a knock on Ortiz, but the whole division. Very few top HW's were making it clear and obvious as to WHY they were considered so much better than anyone else in the top ten. It's almost as if just NOT getting whooped, while beating much lower ranked HW's propelled them to top contender status. They just aren't fighting one another often enough. And with Ortiz, putting up a decent effort against Wilder is seen as much as a win as Wilder putting up a good fight against Fury (who has a thin resume himself!!)

But that's been my major issue with HW boxing.

 

This is precisely my problem... People rated Ortiz because he did well against Wilder - but when the justification now for rating Wilder hinges on Ortiz it's become a circular logic.

But it's difficult when neither has really achieved a huge amount else... You can't rate Ortiz for Wilder AND Wilder for Ortiz at the same time, but when neither if their records has much else of note on it, does it make them both great or both mediocre?

 

That's the issue in all honesty we don't really know how good any of these Heavyweights are even the most notable ones Usyk, Joshua, Fury, etc. Alot of them are missing notable opponents on their resume and they're already on the wrong side of 30.

I mean Ortiz had the win over Jennings and then what else ? he had undefeated record but didn't really build on his win over Jennings which was almost 3 years before he fought Wilder.

Correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't Ortiz only have 1 win over a top 10 ranked opponent ? he didn't fight Parker, Povetkin, Whyte, Pulev, Joshua, etc when they were all ranked in top 10. Now i'm not saying it was all Ortiz's fault he didn't fight these guys, but the fact is regarding his best wins his resume is very thin.

And as i said above that's the problem with division now everyone's resume is paper thin, Joshua has fought the most overall notable names. But even he has missed out on quite a few big names himself.

Overall i still rate it a good win for Wilder relative to this era and the fact it's by far Wilder's best win, but the fact Ortiz only has 1 win over a top 10 ranked opponent. And the fact he hasn't really done much noteworthy after losing to Wilder comparing it to other eras how good is it really ?

 

In a sense you've answered your own question... When so many seem reluctant to fight, how can one fighter manage to fight them all?

That's the big difference between AJ and Wilder, though...
AJ leveraged his belt to go and unify, and to fight the biggest names that were willing to agree terms. And has the resume to show for it.
And on the other hand you have Wilder, whose only real top ten win is Ortiz, who himself doesn't seem to have been too keen on fighting anyone else... But why is Wilder's resume so thin? Did he expect too much of the pot each time? Or did he just not really want to take the rough fights?

 

I think you are right. It's a bit of both, he was avoided by some at certain times, and he avoided some fights himself.

Boxers are like sharks, when they smell blood in the water. I think it is never a good idea for a fighter coming off a loss in their biggest fight to go straight in with hungry top opposition. Fighters with savvy managers know this and will give them a soft touch to rebuild confidence. It's important in match making. Most boxing fans understand this.

Ortiz' biggest win came against Jennings coming off a loss in the biggest fight of his career.

Whyte's biggest win came against Parker coming off a loss in the biggest fight of his career.

Joshua couldn't get his opponents in the ring for love nor money until his loss to Ruiz Jr. And after his second loss to Usyk, suddenly Fury is chasing him and setting very tight deadlines.
Sharks smelling blood as I said.

I know some bring up that Ortiz was avoided by Povetkin. But the context was they were trying to get Povetkin for short money in the ring after he came off his loss to Klitschko. Shark smells blood.

But when Ortiz was given a route to a WBA title shot with Klitschko, whereby he had to face other hungry contenders not coming off big losses, suddenly he started ducking and diving as well. So this boogie man schtick was always a nonsense.

Ortiz was being carefully maneuvered the same as everyone else. Though I do think from the eye test he was a top 10 fighter. But he hasn't actually done anything to say he was ever really top 5.

Now back to Wilder, I rate the wins on paper. But with context both fights for me involved extreme A-side advantage where the referees were protecting Wilder record and the PBC's golden goose.

Fight one, doctor interference.
Fight two, the referee couldn't wait to wave it off at the first sign of trouble, with Ortiz on his feet between rounds and massively ahead on the cards.
If you watch the post fight interviews, Ortiz couldn't believe they did that to him in a world title fight, not once but twice. lol

But hey, Wilder had Fury 2 on the horizon. Same thing happened to Wallin.

So is it a great win for Wilder, it's a good win sure, but I can't rate it more highly than that, because he may well have lost both fights with neutral officiating.

 

I put fairly rated. Feel like the consensus is Ortiz lacked the resume, but passed the eye test as a dangerous southpaw albeit up there in age.

 

This is a fantastic post and pretty much sums it up.

 

Ortiz never was boogeyman of Hw division... They try advertise him this way but this was not even close to truth.

No boogeyman avoid few good fights without reason.
Ortiz avoid good fight with Ustinov which can give him WBA regular belts which give opportunity to fight for WBA super in future.
He avoid Joshua fight for best money in career.
He avoid Filip Hrgovic eliminator IBF which can give him also belt fight if he win.

His best win is Bryant Jennings. Good guy By by but nothing special. He beat him in better fashion than Wlad that why ppl gets crazy about him. But it dont work like that.

He also beat with big problem Charles Martin and very old Tony Thompson.
His quiet good names is also Hammer and Scott.
Like I said. Nothing special.

I said more. He was too long on top 10 for nothing. Somebody must paid for his high position probably...

 

Ortiz is one of the gang, just another heavy who we'll never have an accurate assessment of, because he fought sparingly and rarely took on anyone dangerous.