Heavyweight contender Luis "King Kong" Ortiz was as frustrated as anybody who might have watched his fight with Malik Scott on Saturday.
Although Ortiz scored three knockdowns and won with absolute ease at the Salle des Etoiles in Monte Carlo, he could not make the statement he hoped for with the quick knockout most expected. Instead, Ortiz was forced to go past eight rounds for the first time as Scott ran, backpedaled, complained about nonfouls, clinched and never tried to legitimately compete or win.
In the end, however, Ortiz won by scores of 120-105, 120-106 and 119-106 on the judges' scorecards. ESPN.com scored it 120-105, giving every around to Ortiz, who came into the fight with a reputation as the most avoided man in the division.
Perhaps seeing Ortiz forced to go 12 rounds, albeit with an unwilling foe, might entice others to give him a go, but he was still disappointed with the fight, his first since paying Golden Boy Promotions $1.1 million to buy out his contract after a falling out and then signing about six weeks ago with Eddie Hearn's Matchroom Boxing, the leading promoter in the United Kingdom.
"I came to fight, and he came to run," Ortiz said through a translator. "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."
Ortiz, who was recently stripped of an interim title when he blew off a mandatory fight with Alexander Ustinov after signing with Hearn, will have a chance to rid himself and fight fans of the bad taste from facing Scott because he is due back in the ring to face an opponent to be determined on the undercard of heavyweight world titleholder Anthony Joshua's defense against Eric Molina on Dec. 10 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
Scott (38-3-1, 13 KOs), of Philadelphia, gave a clear indication of his unwillingness to fight barely a minute into the bout when, because he had done so little, referee Jean-Robert Laine stopped the fight briefly and warned Scott that he had to fight.
But Scott, 36, barely did, instead literally running around the ring at times while a frustrated Ortiz (26-0, 22 KOs) tried to land his powerful left hand.
"I'm disappointed to not get another KO," Ortiz said. "He moved around so much, he made that hard, but the most important thing from that now is the rounds and the win."
Scott's lack of effort was illustrated in the CompuBox punch statistics. While Ortiz landed 146 of 472 punches (31 percent), Scott landed 45 of 155 (29 percent). Scott, who was knocked out in 96 seconds by Deontay Wilder in 2014 and then won his next two bouts, never threw more than 21 punches in any round against Ortiz and never landed more than seven punches in a round.
Ortiz, of Miami, landed a left hand over the top in the third round, and the 6-foot-4, 246-pound Scott went down, but Laine surprisingly ruled it a slip. It was one of several times that Scott hit the deck but Laine did not call a knockdown.
Laine did call one in the fourth round, however, when Ortiz landed a left hand behind Scott's ear. But Laine also inexplicably helped Scott to his feet during the count. Later in the round, Scott went down, but again Laine ruled a slip.
In the fifth round, Ortiz dropped Scott with a left hand, and Scott tried to sell it as though he had been hit behind the head, but Laine did not buy his theatrics and gave him a count.
The 6-4, 239½-pound Ortiz, a 37-year-old southpaw who was schooled in the famed Cuban amateur system before defecting and turning pro in 2010, notched his third official knockdown 30 seconds into the ninth round when he clubbed Scott to the body with a clean left hand.
Scott has always had the reputation of being unwilling to engage with his opponents, but his performance against Ortiz was even more negative than usual, and Hearn was rightfully disgusted.
"Malik wanted the fight and the opportunity, but [Scott] just came to survive," Hearn said. "Luis maybe could have forced the pace and forced him to trade, but we'll get someone that wants to fight on Dec. 10, and we'll see more of Luis in Manchester.
"Malik talked us into the fight but didn't deliver. Luis will get a proper fight next time, and we'll see him at his best. There's fighting on the back foot and getting through a fight, and then there's just plain running, and sadly that's what we saw."