By: Danny Kendrick
“Vicious” Victor Ortiz (29-3-2, 22 KO’s) takes on Josesito Lopez (29-4, 17 KO’s) tomorrow night at the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, California in a 12 round sure-to-be slugfest welterweight headliner on Showtime, preceded by a junior welterweight throwdown between top contenders Humberto Soto and heavy handed Lucas Matthysse.
Stepping in for Andre Berto after Berto’s positive PED(performance enhancement drugs) test is Lopez, a tough, pressure fighter with a solid set of skills and some decent power. Some are looking at this as just a fill-in and therefore, an easy test or warm-up for his meeting with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez. Though it could very well be a quick night for Ortiz, I wouldn’t be so quick to jump to the conclusion that Lopez is going to be a lay down victory. Lopez’s pressure, body attack, strong left hook and straight right could disrupt Ortiz’s planned rendezvous with Alvarez if taken lightly. He does, however, tend to be a somewhat easy target to find being that he moves in straight lines. He also doesn’t have quite the speed, power, or relentlessness that Ortiz displays. Where he does have an advantage is that he hasn’t shown the tendency to wilt as Ortiz has when he gets hurt and pressured thereafter.
Having been on the bigger stage and faced the higher caliber of opponents, look for Ortiz to establish his dominance early by applying more pressure in cutting off the slower footed Lopez’s movement and also being the one with the quicker hands, expect him to set the pace and test Lopez’s resilience by firing off the harder, higher output punches. Ortiz is most likely going to try to put Lopez away in spectacular fashion to re-establish his image after the fiasco of the Floyd Mayweather fight in conjunction with wanting to look like he’s primed to take out the highly publicized, undefeated young champion in Alvarez.
