At his best, Ortiz was a technically skilled southpaw with a bludgeoning straight left and a good probing jab. He knew how to win rounds and box too. I don't like Ruddock in this matchup at all. His leaky defense and occasionally poor balance means he will either suffer a flash or hard knockdown early, leading to him being behind on points and potentially causing Ortiz to go for the kill. Ruddock didn't have particularly great endurance either. As for the smash, it's going to be pretty hard for Ruddock to land such an awkward shot on a southpaw with big shoulders whose constantly probing with his jab. Even if he did manage to land it, Ortiz wasn't easy to stop, even Wilder needed a barrage of punches and multiple knockdowns to KO Ortiz the first time and he managed to go the distance with Ruiz despite being hurt and dropped. I'm going to have to say Ortiz wins by KO in round 9 after busting Ruddock up and leading on all 3 scorecards.
You know how Francis switched to southpaw and got dropped by Joshua? I see a mirror image of that, with Ruddock being like Francis.
