Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (27-0, 24 KOs) is now officially out for November 4 against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs) for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Former WBC champion Bermane Stiverne (25-2, 21 KOs) will slide up from the co-feature spot on the November 4 card to face Wilder in the main event.
Stiverne was already scheduled to fight on the card against Dominic Breazeale. That fight is now off. Breazeale put in the hard work to get ready for the Stiverne fight, and now he has nothing to show for it.
If Breazeale can get a fight against Dillian Whyte on October 28, then it would be good news for him. That’s a tough fight to take on only 4 weeks’ notice. I can’t imagine Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn giving Breazeale a big offer to take the fight with Whyte. Hearn has got Breazeale in a position of weakness right now.
The World Boxing Council met and decided Ortiz’s case, and announced the news at the 55th WBC convention on Wednesday.
Wilder vs. Stiverne is not going to get the boxing fans too excited in the U.S. Stiverne has fought only once in the last 2 years since losing to Wilder in January 2015 by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision. Stiverne vs. Wilder brought in good ratings back then, but that was back when Stiverne was still an active fighter. Siverne stopped being active following his loss to Wilder 2 years ago.
Stiverne’s last fight was against Derric Rossy in 2015, and he was knocked down in the fight.
Wilder has now seen two important fights slip through his fingers with Luis Ortiz and Alexander Povetkin both testing positive for banned drugs.
Ortiz positive drug test results for the Wilder on November 4, tied the WBC’s hands, leaving them no option but to rule the Cuban out as an opponent for Wilder.
The WBC hasn’t yet said what they’ll do with Ortiz. He’s almost certainly to be suspended for a period of time. This is the second time the Cuban has tested positive for banned drugs. The first time came in 2014. Wilder still wanted to fight Ortiz even though he’d been popped in the past. Wilder isn’t happy with the latest positive test from Ortiz, but he only has himself to blame for choosing to take the fight with him in the first place Wilder put his truest in Ortiz that he would stay clean for the fight.
VADA was the testing agency. Wilder has now found out the hard way that he needs to be more selective when picking out his opponents for his voluntary defenses. It’s one thing if Ortiz had been Wilder’s mandatory challenger and quite another thing when it was him that selected him in a voluntary defense.
Here’s what the WBC said in their press release announcing the Wilder vs. Stiverne news:
“From WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman in Baku:
The WBC has concluded the process, according to its Clean Boxing Program protocol, in the adverse finding of Luis Ortiz. An official ruling has been sent to the corresponding parties.
The WBC has withdrawn its sanction of the Deontay Wilder vs. Ortiz fight, and Wilder will fight next his mandatory fight against Bermane Stiverne.”
Specific details will be released at a later date.