By Elisinio Castillo
Cuban heavyweight Luis "King Kong" Ortiz is looking for some payback.
The dangerous boxer felt he was a few punches away from knocking out WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) back in March, when they collided at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
He had Wilder in serious trouble in the seventh round. Wilder managed to survive, and then he eventually batted back and knocked out Ortiz in the tenth round.
Ortiz (28-1, 24 KOs) makes his ring return on Saturday night, when he faces Romanian Razvan Cojanu (16-3, 9 KOs) in a Showtime televised fight from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.
He hopes the next fight will be against Wilder - or at the very least the rematch can happen in the first quarter of 2019.
Ortiz felt the officials saved Wilder from a knockout loss - by calling for a timeout at the start of the eight round, so the ringside doctor could check on Wilder.
"The only possible revenge is against Wilder. All roads lead to it, or must lead to it. We have a pending issue that now takes a small detour with this fight on July 28," Ortiz told George Ebro.
"As I told you before, I have that dagger stuck in my heart. I have that pain there and every day that goes by it grows. I want to fight with Wilder again. It's something that has been fixed into my mind. [For this upcoming fight], physically and mentally it's as if he's also preparing me for that future clash against Wilder. I have changed things in my training with that pain on my mind. I want Wilder again. It's the only thing that I can say."
After this fight, Ortiz intends to fight for a third time this year.
Wilder is planning to fight in the coming months, with WBC mandatory challenger Dominic Breazeale as a possible opponent.
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