At the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York, Deontay Wilder made a successful seventh defence of his WBC world heavyweight title.
The 32-year-old American, having his hardest fight of his career against the unbeaten Cuban, stopped his man in the tenth round.
However, the performance Wilder produced wasn?t as emphatic as he?d have hoped for.
Coming in at his lightest weight for nine years, Wilder had Ortiz on the canvas twice but had to survive a huge scare in the seventh round when Ortiz has him in the kind of trouble none of his previous opponents have been able to do.
The first knockdown came in the fifth round but far from being fazed, Ortiz launched his own attack in the seventh round whereby he caught Wilder with a huge right hook followed up by a barrage of punches.
However, Wilder showed guts by hanging on in there and in the tenth round another big punch saw Ortiz hit the canvas for a second time, this time the referee stepped in to stop the fight with fifty-five seconds of the round remaining.
The win takes Wilder?s record to 40-0 with 39 of those wins coming by the big KO, whereas, Ortiz suffered his first defeat of his professional career.
Talking about the victory, Wilder had this to say,
‘He hit me with flurry of punches but it wasn’t hard.
‘He knocked me off balance. I just had to get my fundamentals back and I did.
‘I figured out a way to come back. A true champion always finds a way. That’s what I did tonight.?
Can anyone stop the brash talking Bronze Bomber?
Wilder Stops Ortiz in 10 Rounds
