Malik Scott Disgraces The Sweet Science in Loss to Luis Ortiz

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By Anthony “Stacks” Saldaña

Saturday night in Monte Carlo at the Salle des Etoiles (Hall of Stars) in front of millions of HBO viewers worldwide and a live audience that included Prince Albert of Monaco, Malik Scott, 38-3-1, 13 KO’s ran around the ring and refused to fight the undefeated heavyweight Luis “King Kong” Ortiz, 26-0, 22 KO’s in a bout that could possibly be the worst fight I have ever witnessed. From the opening bell, Scott was preparing himself to be knocked down. Scott fell on several occasions throughout the fight without ever being hit by Ortiz.

Scott refused to engage in any type of exchange with Ortiz as he danced, clinched and complained throughout the entire fight. In the first-round, Malik ran so much that the referee Jean Robert Laine, who was just as bad as Scott, stopped the fight to warn Scott for his lack of willingness to fight. Scott stayed on his bicycle and made it hard for Ortiz to show any type of offense. In the third-round, Ortiz caught Scott with a huge over hand right, but referee Laine ruled it a slip. In the fourth, the fight took another odd twist when Scott was again knocked down by the hard hitting Ortiz, this time Laine ruled it a knockdown, but helped Scott to his feet. In the 5th, Ortiz again floored Scott and Scott claimed he was hit with a rabbit punch, but Laine ruled it a clean knockdown.

The Cuban boxer put Scott on his back for the third official time in the 9th round with a left to the body, Scott beat the count and continued to stink up the joint for the rest of the fight. After 12 rounds, the judges had it, 120-105, 120-106, and 119-106 all in favor of Ortiz. CompuBox numbers showed that Malik Scott had only landed 45 of 155 punches thrown in the entire fight. After the fight Ortiz said “I came to fight, and he came to run. He was so negative he made it hard to make it a good fight. Everyone came to see a show, to see a fight, a brawl, and he didn’t want that, which is sad. I’m disappointed not to get another KO.” Malik Scott took to social media and stated “I totally have to agree with the viewers and I’m horrible at making excuses, I just had an awful shitty night in the office, shit shit fight guys I wish I could disagree with you but FACTS are FACTS, and I had a shitty performance, happily excepting all criticism.”

Now that my readers have the run down of the fight, it wasn’t just a bad fight it was pathetic. Scott never wanted to be in the ring with Ortiz. It honestly seemed as if Scott lost that fight before the bell rang, the sad truth is more than likely Malik lost the fight in his head. Scott wasn’t mentally prepared to fight and his actions showed it. From the flopping to the canvas, to the complaints of rabbit punches and his refusal to throw punches, Scott was a complete disappointment to everyone including himself.

The only person who may have had a night worse then Scott was referee Laine. From him not calling knockdowns, knockdowns, to Laine stopping his ten count to help Malik up back to his feet after a knockdown, Saturday night’s fight was truly bizarre. Scott who started his career with an undefeated record of 35-0 is now 36 years old. He was recently brutally knocked out by Deontay Wilder and looked for a way out the entire fight against Ortiz. When the fight was announced, I knew it looked bad on paper, but it was really hard to watch. The Heavyweight division used to be the greatest division in boxing, but with the antics and tactics that took place on Saturday night it will continue to the mediocre laughing stock of boxing.

For Ortiz, the 6 foot 4, 37-year-old Cuban southpaw this was supposed to be a coming out party for him, his new promotional company Matchroom and his promoter Eddie Hearn, but instead of bringing fireworks to Monte Carlo, Ortiz was instead a dud. Ortiz and Matchroom will try and leave his fight against Scott behind them as Ortiz is due back in the ring to face an opponent that’s yet to be determined on the undercard of heavyweight world titleholder Anthony Joshua’s defense against Eric Molina, on December 10th, at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.

Eddie Hearn stated after the fight, “In my opinion, Malik was afraid from round one. I think Luis Ortiz should have forced the pace a little bit more to try and get him out of there, but he was frustrated himself. This was disappointing from Malik Scott. These guys have got to come to win and we will find someone on December 10 who will come to win, and then you will see the best of Luis Ortiz.”

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