2016 Luis Ortiz vs 2016 Anthony Joshua

It's a sweet deal being "forced" to take fights against the likes of Breazeale, Molina, Takam, Ruiz x2 and Pulev, along with a unification with Parker and then pretend these puddings are "top 10" opponents who pose a serious threat to any elite heavyweight.

You ironically accuse me of having an absent mind but claim that Ortiz didn't stop Tony Thompson lol. You are referring to the Scott fight, where Scott was in pure survival mode for 12 rounds, lost 12-0, was dropped three times and could have very easily been stopped by a ref who wanted to. Ortiz battered Allen (who is crap but tough) medically damaged him and stopped him in 7 but Allen easily took Whyte the 10 round distance, yet this was a bad performance by Ortiz? Putting Ortiz on a Matchroom card didn't mean Hearn had intentions to match AJ with him any time soon as he's done the same with Hrgovic and Hunter, with their careers deliberately stalled. Hearn has to pretend he's working for these guys and advancing their careers to string them along but at Ortiz's age, he couldn't afford to be messed around for 2+ years. Could you imagine AJ getting robbed on a Matchroom card against a relatively unmarketable or unknown fighter? It's absurd to even contemplate. But it happened to Matchroom promoted Hunter and almost happened to Matchroom promoted Bivol and Usyk against journeyman tier fighters.

Considering that Hearn wanted to get AJ out of fighting WBA mandatory Povetkin, the less well financially backed Ortiz would have likely been stiffed on the WBA route as well and would have had to wait at least 5 months longer for his shot even if he wasn't. It's also cute that you claim that Wilder was the only "top 10" fighter that Ortiz ever fought when A. Jennings was 6th ranked by Ring when Ortiz destroyed him B. getting chinned by Wilder is a hell of a lot less embarrassing than getting chinned by Ruiz and C. you are going to struggle to get fights if you're a very good fighter who lacks commercial value and strong backing. Look at Hrgovic: is it his fault that he can't get fights with highly ranked opponents? Is he a crap fighter who is ducking everyone? The argument seems to be that Ortiz signed with Hearn in 2016 in order to...duck AJ and waste some of what relatively little time at the top level he had left?

Ortiz was calling out Joshua and Wilder in 2016 and 2017, whichever would give him the shot first. Ideally he would have likely preferred AJ (especially considering the vulnerabilities that Ortiz observed in the Wlad fight) as AJ had 2 belts and offered the most money and interest. But he must have calculated that signing with PBC would actually get him a shot or get him a shot sooner, which it did. Wilder was saying beforehand that he wouldn't fight Ortiz due to Ortiz failing a drug test (as Whyte and Povetkin both have twice) but didn't have a problem with fighting him after he was part of the same organisation. After Ortiz was with PBC, they didn't want Wilder's best non-Fury opponent to go off fighting AJ so they gave Ortiz another shot at the end of the year, with a full camp instead of 4 weeks notice. They didn't want PBC Kownacki fighting AJ either because he was undefeated and was being lined up to be a Wilder defence. But they were happy to let the already defeated PBC Ruiz do it, who they thought was going nowhere anyway. This is more plausible than your stupid and dishonest insinuation that unlike heartless journeyman Eric Molina, an already defeated Ortiz was scared to fight AJ for more money, more status and more belts but not scared to rematch the hardest puncher who already battered and chinned him, for less money, less status and fewer belts.

 

You can't do much better than a 1st round KO and pumped up cruiser Kayode would go on to take elite cruiser Lebedev to the 8th. Kayode was 20-0 and to my knowledge had never been dropped.

 

This logic is pathetic: Joshua went life and death with a 17 months inactive, dethroned and schooled in his last fight Wlad in 2017 but was destroyed by Andy Ruiz in mid 2019, who has slower feet than Ortiz and probably wouldn't have stopped Thompson or Allen, let alone as Ortiz did in 6 and 7 rounds. I also never claimed that Joshua "couldn't" beat Ortiz: inferior fighters can and do beat superior ones. My claim is that Ortiz probably would have beaten Joshua, who was far less experienced then and has been badly exposed since.