In addition to all the brash talk about proving he’s the best heavyweight boxer on the planet, Deontay Wilder has another reason for agreeing to fight Luis “King Kong” Ortiz on Saturday night at Barclays Center. The fighters share a special bond: They are each fathers of daughters born with special needs.
Wilder’s daughter, Naieya, was born in 2005 with spina bifida, a birth defect in which there is an incomplete closing of the backbone and membranes around the spinal cord. Needing to earn money to pay for her treatment was one of the reasons Wilder got serious about boxing. He won a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and now he’s the WBC heavyweight champion.
Ortiz has a daughter, Lis, who left Cuba with her father when she was 4 years old. The goal was to get her treatment for epidermolysis bullosa, a condition that can cause the skin to be very fragile and to blister easily. Wilder said knowing he and Ortiz have traveled similar paths as fathers was a reason he agreed to defend his WBC heavyweight championship against the Cuban defector. Showtime will televise.
“When I look at him and I look at me, we have similarities,” Wilder said Thursday before a press conference in Manhattan. “His daughter suffers from something like mine did. That takes money to be treated properly and to support the family. I looked at him as a father and from one father to another father that loves their family, and loves their children, I said, ‘I’ve got to give him an opportunity to support his family.’ ”
That doesn’t mean Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) has gone soft. He’s still planning to make Ortiz (28-0, 24 KOs) his latest knockout victim in what will be his seventh title defense. The two were scheduled to meet in November before Ortiz tested positive for a banned substance. Ortiz, who said the medication was for high blood pressure, now gets another shot at the heavyweight championship.
“It would have been easy to say, ‘I’m not going to fight you anymore. You had your chance,” Wilder said of Ortiz. “But when I see him going through something with his daughter and knowing my story, I can relate to that. I’m still going to knock him out in the ring, but he’s going to get some money to support his family and I want to provide that for [him].”
Some would call this a risky fight for Wilder, who will earn about $2 million for the bout, while Ortiz will earn about $1 million. Wilder is hoping for a unification bout with Anthony Joshua later this year in what could be the biggest heavyweight fight since the Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis era. Ortiz, who has power in both hands, is an excellent southpaw counterpuncher with an extensive amateur career in Cuba.
“I think Deontay deserves incredible props for taking this kind of risk and embracing it,” promoter Lou DiBella said. “He’s fighting the toughest possible fight available to him for the money that’s available. That’s what a great champion is supposed to do.”
Wilder said a victory over Ortiz would make him the No. 1 heavyweight in the land, ahead of Joshua, the IBF/WBA titleholder. Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) will put his belts up against WBO champ Joseph Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) of New Zealand on March 31 in Cardiff, Wales. Wilder would love to get Joshua in the ring later this year.