Deontay Wilder explains his lighter weight for Ortiz fight

Boxingnews24.com

By Jim Dower

A painfully thin Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder surprised a lot of people in weighing in at 214 3/4 pounds on Friday at his weigh-in for his title defense against Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz.

This is the lightest weight for Wilder in 9 years since 2009. Wilder’s face looked tired and drawn at the weigh-in. He almost looks like he dehydrated himself. Obviously, that’s a crazy idea, because heavyweights don’t need to make weight like other fighters. Wilder has been slowly dropping weight for the last 2 years since 2016.

Wilder came in the Chris Arreola fight 226 lbs. That was 2 lbs. lighter than Wilder was for his fight against Artur Szpilka. He was 228 for that match. Wilder’s weight then went to 222 lbs. for the Gerald Washington fight in February 2017, and then 220 lbs. for his rematch with Bermane Stiverne last November.

Showtime Championship Boxing will be televising the Wilder-Ortiz fight at 9:00 p.m. ET on Saturday night. If Wilder flops, it’s going to be seen by a lot of people. Wilder probably should have had his eyes on his scale while training to monitor his weight better so that he wouldn’t come in so low. That’s a big mistake on Wilder and his training team’s part for him to come in at 214 lbs. against a fighter that is in the low 240s like Ortiz.

Wilder’s face looked really bony looking, and his muscles in his upper body appeared atrophied. In a word, Wilder looked over-trained. Is it worry that caused Wilder to come in this light or does he have a secret strategy of using his lighter weight to try and elude the unbeaten 38-year-old Cuban for 12 rounds.

After the weigh-in, Wilder defended his lighter weight, saying that weights don’t matter, and that smaller guys often knockout bigger guys. Never the less, Wilder will be facing a much heavier fighter in Ortiz (28-0, 24 KOs), who weighed in 26 ½ lbs. heavier than him at 241 ¼ lbs. at the weigh-in.

Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) might not see it as an important matter, but it could very well sink his chances of retaining his WBC heavyweight title on Saturday night when he meets Ortiz at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

“I don’t care about weight,” Wilder said about his low 214 lb. weight for the fight. ‘That don’t matter. That’s all mental. I’ve seen some of the smaller guys knockout some of the bigger guys. Every guy I’ve faced has outweighed me the majority of my career. Some don’t want to see what’s going to happen. I will unify the division. He should be afraid because he’s never fought anybody like me,” Wilder said.

Wilder’s eyes looked sunken in from weight loss at the weigh-in, and skin around his face noticeably thinner. Wilder has the appearance of someone that hasn’t been eating well.

In the last 6 years, the 6’7” Wilder has always weighed in from 220 to 228 lbs. So for him to deviate from the norm by coming in at 214, it looks very strange on his part that he would choose this fight for him to drop the weight rather than in a match against a weaker opponent. Ortiz is not the type of fighter that you want to be experimenting with your weight against. Wilder should have stuck with the weight that had worked for him in the 220s rather than using this fight to lose weight.

Wilder surprised boxing fans 3 years ago when he weighed in at 219 lbs. for his first fight with Bermane Stiverne in January 2015. Wilder had been weighing in the neighborhood of 224 lbs. before the first Stiverne fight. Wilder looked weaker against Stiverne at 219, and he couldn’t hurt the 239 lb. fighter. Wilder put weight on and fought his next 6 fights from 220 to 229. Wilder’s last fight against Stiverne, Wilder dropped down to 220 lbs.

“I’m going to let the world know that the weight don’t mean a thing,” Wilder said to Showtime after the weigh-in.

After seeing how light Wilder came in at the weigh-in, Ortiz is now even more motivated than ever to defeat him and become the first Cuban to capture a heavyweight world title. This fight means everything to Ortiz, as he hasn’t made the good money that Wilder has in his boxing career. If Ortiz can win this fight, he’ll get another big payday in the rematch with Wilder, and then possibly he’ll get a shot at facing IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in a unification fight. Instead of Wilder being the one that gets the Joshua fight, it could be Ortiz if he can pull off the upset on Saturday night in front of a packed Barclays Arena in Brooklyn, New York.

It looks like Wilder made a mistake in coming in too light for the Ortiz fight. With Wilder’s tall 6’7” frame, he doesn’t have the luxury of dropping weight the way other fighters do. If Wilder was a 250 lb. heavyweight, it wouldn’t matter too much of he dropped 6 lbs. and came in at 244 lbs. But for Wilder to drop from 220 to 214, it seems like he – and his training team – made a colossal mistake. Wilder’s trainers should have been monitoring his weight the entire camp. It’s amateurish for the trainers to let Wilder get his weight this light for a title defense, being that it suggests they weren’t keeping track of it. Right now, Wilder’s weight is that of a cruiserweight. In fact, Wilder could easily drop 14 lbs. of water weight and compete against one of the top cruiserweights like Oleksandr Usyk or Murat Gassiev. Those guys rehydrate to the same weight Wilder is at right now at 214 for their fights.

”I’m not losing tomorrow,” Ortiz said. I’ve been waiting my whole career to do this as a pro, and as an amateur this is something I never dreamed I would do.”

Wilder, 32, is his own worst enemy in more ways than one. Besides letting his weight drop so low to 214, he also is the one that chose to give the very dangerous Ortiz this fight. Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn have shown absolutely no desire to fight Ortiz. Hearn could have made the Joshua vs. Ortiz fight years ago when he was briefly promoting the Cuban, but he chose not to. Wilder had the perfect excuse not to fight Ortiz after he tested positive for 2 banned drugs last year and ruled out for his November 4th fight.

Wilder could have made Ortiz weight until the World Boxing Council made him the mandatory challenger before facing him. At best, Ortiz would have been looking at least 2 years before he’d get a crack at Wilder in that situation. If Wilder loses this fight to Ortiz, he can only look at himself in the mirror when it comes to pointing fingers to blame someone. Wilder didn’t have to take the fight with Ortiz, and it was his own fault for allowing his weight get so low.

If was a strategy on Wilder and his team’s part to let his weight get low, he could lose some power. It might not be a huge drop off in power though, as Wilder’s tall frame is what helps him generate his power. When Wilder was a 200 lb. amateur in the Olympics, he was hurting people with his shots. Wilder being lighter will help him box Ortiz and stay mobile. Wilder is not as mobile when he’s in the 228 lb. range. He looks soft when he’s that weight, and the muscle seems to slow him down.

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