Luis Ortiz has hit back at Tyson Fury ahead of his ring return this weekend.
The Cuban heavyweight takes on former unified world heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr. on Sunday.
Ortiz will face the ex-WBA Super, WBO, IBO and IBF king at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
But the 43-year-old, who has lost just twice in his career, has taken a swipe at the current WBC champion Fury – who is targeting an undisputed showdown against Oleksandr Usyk in the wake of his rematch win over Anthony Joshua last month – after the 34-year-old picked Mexican-based Californian Ruiz to beat him.
Ruiz famously ripped the aforementioned titles from Joshua at Madison Square Garden in New York three years ago, dropping him four times en route to a seventh-round stoppage, before losing their rematch on points in Saudi Arabia six months later.
And ‘The Gypsy King’, who recently indicated his desire to continue boxing and called out the Ukrainian southpaw Usyk to a mouthwatering clash, potentially worth in the region of £500million, has sided with Ruiz Jr. over ‘King Kong’.
Tyson Fury sends a video message in support of Andy Ruiz Jr after Deontay Wilder backed Luis Ortiz to beat him in their fight on Sept 4th…
[🎥 @Tyson_Fury] pic.twitter.com/xSXYJ6R2Xl
— Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) August 19, 2022
Ortiz was talking to FightHype about the Brit’s decision when he said:
“Tyson Fury is talking sh*t [by picking Ruiz to beat Ortiz].”
He was then asked who he thought would win between Fury and Usyk if the highly-anticipated showdown for all the marbles gets over the line.
“I would just like to sit down and watch the fight between them because both can be full of surprises and that is what makes this sport so good.”
Bob Arum, the Top Rank head honcho who looks after Fury’s affairs Stateside, has said that discussions are at an advanced stage for the fight that he believes is “the biggest since Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier”, while Frank Warren of Queensberry, who looks after Fury in the UK and staged his April defence of the WBC title at Wembley Stadium in London in which he stopped number one contender Dillian Whyte inside six rounds, said that the purse split for the fight is practically agreed.