I'd heavily favor Ortiz few years ago. Now, at 75, time is not on his side and in the last 3 years he has had less than minute 'fight' experience against no-hoper who blatantly quit
Yay.... A fight on New Year's day. Should be a good one. Hopefully, it will start the new year off with a bang! If Ortiz wins, will he be the IBF mandatory for the Usyk-Joshua II winner?
I rate Martin by his performance against Joshua and maybe im doing wrong, but i think he is a bum against top fighters and hehwill have no chance against ortiz no matter what his age is. But an interesting fight with two southpaws.
Be an emotional day for Ortiz as he reminisces about the time his childhood friend Pope Gregory in 1582 officially announced 1st of Jan as New Year’s Day.
Luis Ortiz is carrying Wilders resume on his back. He'd better make quick work of Charles Martin or else
Ortiz will have been inactive for 14 months (though without any decent ringtime for just over 2 years) Martin for 22 months. Ortiz will be 42.75 (officially, maybe more like 44/45) Martin will be 35.75. Ortiz is one fight removed from a KO loss to Wilder, Martin is three fights removed from a 6-4 decision loss to Kownacki (that he may well have won over 12). These stats don't favour Ortiz but it's likely he still has enough left in the tank to beat Charles Martin. Martin is one of the worst heavyweight champions of the last 20 years, as his fights against Alvaro Morales, Joshua Clark, Anthony Joshua, Adam Kownacki, Gregory Corbin and Daniel Martz make abundantly clear. Even his best wins against Czar Glazkov (knee gave out while even on the cards, got gifts over 12 against a faded Steve Cunningham and Malik Scott, edged Derric Rossy over 10) and Gerald Washington (thrice stopped, washed up, drew over 10 near his prime with Amir Mansour) have several asterisks attached to them. Ortiz is very skillful, experienced and has a lot of power, so age is less of a hinderance for him than most and Martin was shot in the forearm after an altercation over 5 years ago and smokes weed. Aside from being dropped twice and humiliatingly stopped in 2 rounds by AJ, Martin quit in that fight, so there's a decent chance that Ortiz (who will surely be very confident having fought better pro opposition on at least three, possibly five occasions and having devastated a southpaw SHW before, with Martin only having faced better opposition on one occasion and not having faced a southpaw of any note) gets the stoppage. If not and Martin comes purely to survive for a payday, Ortiz should win a wide UD. Also consider the politics of this: PBC are unlikely to put Ortiz in with someone they deem to be a massive threat, especially if doing so could put shine on AJ's resume at Wilder's expense. Even if Ortiz was shot, losing to Charles Martin would be a PR disaster. Therefore it's probable that they believe Martin is a relatively easy mark. If it's a PBC event as I expect it to be, Ortiz will also be the A-side and is fighting as close to home as possible in Florida.
Fight kind of makes sense neither of their careers are going anywhere with Ortiz facing journeymen and no prospect of a title shot and Martin despite having won an IBF eliminator not willing to face Hrgovic in a final eliminator to get a title shot. Only chance Martin has is if Ortiz is completely shot, Martin couldn't even beat Kownacki who lost twice to Helenius. If Ortiz has anything left he should KO Martin without too much difficulty.
How sad is the state of the division that in fact this is a "good fight", of all the ones to be cobbled together from among the active ranked contenders?
Even matchup. Luis Ortiz is old and faded, and by now Charles Martin will probably have declined somewhat due to inactivity.
