2016 Luis Ortiz vs 2016 Anthony Joshua

It's funny how one minute you guys will claim that Ortiz is far older than his stated age and the next you'll pretend that the Ortiz who fought Martin (a far improved Martin from the green version who fought AJ and like Molina come in with no intention of winning) was the same Ortiz who fought Wilder or further back Jennings.

Ortiz was officially almost 43 years old (44-45? 50?) virtually 25 months inactive and coming off two KO defeats to Wilder, so let's not be disingenuous. Yet he still hit Martin harder than he'd ever been hit before, so hard that Martin forgot where he was and probably even who he was. So logically, the younger Ortiz would have punched faster, more accurately and more explosively, with better timing than the one who destroyed Martin. Ortiz also proved his heart and mental toughness even at an advanced age in getting up from those KD's to win the fight against a man in his prime who had taken a strong lead and believed he could win.

Wilder's main skill is landing a KO punch, which considering his length, speed and accuracy has proven to be very difficult for his opponents to avoid for 36 minutes. But he can also box a bit, proven by his near-shutout displays against Stiverne, Duhaupas and Arreola. He won a bronze in the Olympics before he turned 23 by winning many decisions over 3-4 rounds and beat the Russian southpaw 2007 World Championship silver medalist and 2008 Olympic gold medalist in Russia the same year. If you can beat a gold medalist in practically any field, then you have serious skills. I don't see how AJ's display against an untrained Ruiz was technically more impressive than Wilder's championship debut against Stiverne. Wilder landed proportionately more shots than AJ did against a better opponent and didn't have to resort to as much blatant running and holding.

 

Roy Jones described Ortiz's handspeed as "middleweight handspeed" in 2015, from the Vidondo fight. That may be hyperbole but Ortiz had fast hands and was very well co-ordinated.

 

I see the styles matchup favouring Ortiz, with AJ not having the footspeed or backfoot game to outbox Ortiz and being caught in an exchange with big counters. AJ felt far less vulnerable back then, so Ortiz would have more opportunities to land than he would against the AJ of today. It would be a shootout but Ortiz took a number of bombs from Wilder while two years older, has displayed a lot of heart and more power than AJ. He's also got much more killer instinct than post-Brewster Wlad and wouldn't let AJ off the hook easily if he had him hurt.

 

It's impossible to say where Ortiz's prime was because he turned pro so late and you need pro experience before you can be at your best. 2016 could have been the peak of his powers (or at least near it) coming off the Jennings destruction. I also picked 2016 because that's the time that an AJ-Ortiz fight was first touted and you can most accurately compare the respective abilities of fighters when closest in time.

 

Then they're about as dumb and reactionary as your average boxing fan. Ortiz didn't have fast feet but he had faster feet than the slob who destroyed AJ and made him quit. Ortiz isn't a face first pressure fighter and was content to pitch a shutout with 3 KD's while taking no damage rather than bullrush in, get outboxed and take a lot more punishment than he needed to. Also, if Ortiz had that British referee against Scott he would have scored a 4th round KO.

 

He's not as slow as Ruiz though was he? And limited though he may be, he didn't have a glass chin and glass heart. It's also hard to get good fights when the name fighters are avoiding you.

 

Ortiz had fast hands and faster feet than Ruiz. Why couldn't a more skilled and experienced 2019 AJ tee off on stubby light puncher Ruiz?

 

He looked pretty devastating in the Kayode fight, which he popped for.