Luis Ortiz survived two falls to score a sixth-round knockout victory over Charles Martin in a heavyweight fight Saturday night at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida.
Ortiz (33-2, 28 KOs) dropped Martin with a left fly that left him stunned in the corner, and then Ortiz completed the job by unloading a punch pack that put Martin on one knee. In a strange sequence, Martin’s left glove got tangled in the ropes after the fall until the referee released him.
Martin (28-3-1, 25 KOs) endured a tremendous amount of punishment before being knocked down a second time. The 35-year-old St. Louis native beat the count, but the referee stopped the fight at 1:37 minute of round 6. Martin, who was leading 48-45, 48-45 and 47-46, protested the stoppage earlier. of walking towards Ortiz, who pushed him. Then they hugged.
“I was definitely very focused for this fight; I never worried,” Ortiz, ESPN’s eighth heavyweight, said through an interpreter. “Lefty versus southpaw is a very tough fight. In the end, intelligence won the fight.”
At first, it was difficult for Ortiz. He was knocked down in the first round after Martin landed with his left behind the ear and then again in the fourth round after a jab.
Both Ortiz and Martin boxed cautiously, seemingly suspicious of each other’s power, but the Cuban finally broke through in the sixth round.
With the victory, Ortiz is in line for another significant fight in the heavyweight division. His only two losses came via knockout in title fights against Deontay Wilder, the most recent a brutal one-punch knockout in November 2019.
But at age 42, time is running out for Ortiz to finally win the heavyweight championship.