IBF Heavyweight Title Eliminator
Last night’s FOX Pay-Per-View/Premier Boxing Champions Main Event between “King Kong” Luis Ortiz (33-2, 28 Kos) and “Prince” Charles Martin (28-3-1, 25 Kos) at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida was quite the interesting bout to bring in the New Year 2022.
Both combatants promised fireworks in this bout and the first one to let out a spark was Charles when he pressed the action in the first round and surprisingly dropped Ortiz for a quick 8 count that got the crowd in attendance fired up.
Being that both combatants are southpaws, Charles was the one who looked more comfortable at letting his hands go in the earlier rounds, disrupting Ortiz with a good solid jab that landed dead on the mark in the fourth round and dropped Ortiz once again for an 8 count but this time right before the bell.
Ortiz, clearly behind on points entering the fifth round, attempted to press the action and appeared to do enough with his own strong jab to win the round.
By the sixth round, Ortiz continued with his pressure and eventually caught Martin with a strong jab to the dome that had him frozen in the “Matrix” dead on his feet, oblivious to his surroundings. This prompted Ortiz to administer an onslaught of heavy shots that dropped Martin tangled into the ropes and the floor which forced a weird break in the heated action.
Once Martin was untangled by the referee, Ortiz when in for the kill with a series of unanswered body and head shots that dropped Martin for another 8 count that eventually urged the referee to stop the bout.
Ortiz had to dig deep coming off the canvas twice in this bout to pull this one off but “King Kong” prevailed and got the job done in a convincing fashion.
With this win, Ortiz is now the mandatory challenger to the IBF Title held by Heavyweight Unified Champion Oleksandr Usyk (19-0, 13 Kos). That being said Ortiz made it real clear last night after the bout that if any Heavyweight wants to fight for the IBF Heavyweight Title they will have to go through “King Kong” to get that opportunity.
With Ortiz getting up there in age, nearly three months shy of his 43rd birthday, the competitors are probably thinking the time is now to get Ortiz out of the way. The trap is set, now let’s see who signs up for the challenge.
Blaze