Southpaws are hugely overrepresented as victors against top heavyweights - One of Holyfield's five losses in his 30's was to southpaw Moorer - One of Vitali's two losses was to southpaw Byrd - One of Wlad's four losses in his 20's and 30's was to southpaw Sanders - Two of Joshua's three losses have come against southpaw Usyk 5/14 or 36%: southpaws have beaten these top heavyweights at 2-3 times the rate of orthodox fighters. - Even in defeat, southpaws are often among the most competitive and dangerous opponents: Thompson vs Wlad 1, Ortiz vs Wilder 1, Wallin vs Fury. Furthermore, Wlad, Wilder and Fury all had a lot of southpaw experience - Holmes, Tyson, Bowe and Lewis never fought a southpaw of note as pros - Holmes was KO’d twice by a 5’10, 205 lbs, future journeyman southpaw as an amateur - At least 2/8 of Ali’s amateur losses came against southpaws and he had one of his most competitive pre-Frazier fights against Mildenberger: a 6’1.5, 195 lbs southpaw Euro champ with mediocre amateur pedigree, a suspect chin and relatively little power - Joe Louis admitted to ducking southpaws: “I don’t want absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with no southpaws. Bettina is out.” Southpaw heavyweights barely existed prior to the 90's due to American trainers generally converting southpaws to orthodox, nobody wanted to fight them (hence most historical heavyweights and trainers were untested against them and prior to Holyfield, never encountered a champion level 175+ lbs southpaw), there wasn’t a southpaw heavyweight title challenger until 1966 (European champion Mildenberger), a southpaw heavyweight titlist until 1994 (former LHW titlist Moorer) and two of the three most accomplished southpaw heavyweights prior to Usyk were former sub-cruisers.
Big men punch hard Southpaw heavyweights are rarer in that heavyweights in general are rarer. Getting out the way of a big left hand is harder for slow lumbering orthodox heavies whilst southpaws are used to fighting orthodox's Basically all the issues which come with unfamiliarity from the southpaw Vs Orthodox issue are exacerbated at HW. The smaller weight classes can adapt better & have a bigger pool of experience to draw off. Big hitting counterpunching southpaws would be a demon at HW but yes they're rare and when they do come about they're normally smaller which a bigger orthodox who is any good can shutdown with a jab. If Luis Ortiz wasn't 100 years old he would have been even better and he was pretty good.
Ortiz's career was very poorly managed. As a Cuban emigrant he made his pro debut just as he was about to turn 31, so he was already on the clock. At 3-0 he KO’d 53 fight veteran Page in 8, who was in the midst of a 6 year, 44 fight streak where only Ortiz stopped him among a slew of contenders and former/future champions. You'd have thought that was the perfect time to push on but 5 prime years were wasted fighting 21 filler opponents between Page and Jennings. He shouldn't have stepped aside for Joshua to fight Wlad, with an agreement to fight the winner which wasn't honoured. He finally got his shot against Wilder just before he turned 39 but he was coming in off inactivity and was a clear B-side. Unless he was injured he should have also taken the short notice fight at 40 that Ruiz took with Joshua, leaving PBC if need be as Wilder had Ortiz's number at that point.
the most significant southpaw heavyweight in boxing history until recent years was Corrie Sanders, or Michael Moorer something the fantasy matchup heads aways neglect to consider
Ortiz was back in the ring 9 months after the Kayode fight (as opposed to his usual 4-5 month gap around that time) and the first Wilder fight was delayed by 4 months. Ortiz never received an extensive ban. I'm also sceptical about the impartiality of drug testing in boxing.
