By Tiffany Williams
New England native Jamaine Ortiz, a 26-year-old lightweight fighter from Worcester, Massachusetts on Saturday night will be back in the ring for his third fight of 2022.
In February Ortiz beat Nahir Albright and in May, Ortiz beat Jamel Herring. Saturday night, Ortiz is seeking to win his third fight of 2022 against Vasyl Lomachenko at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Lomachenko will not be an easy fight for Ortiz. With a storied boxing career, Lomachenko who has 396 amateur career wins, turned professional in 2013, established himself as one of the most successful amateur boxers in history, winning two gold medals at the Olympic Games. By the end of 2018, Lomachenko had claimed the lightweight belts from the World Boxing Organization, the International Boxing Federation and the World Boxing Association. In 2020, Lomachenko lost to Teofimo Lopez. But in 2021, he rebounded to beat Masayoshi Nakatani.
With Lomachenko against Ortiz you should expect to see constant head and upper body movement, he will try to grapple and control the fight for his benefit and you can expect to see him go on the outside foot of Ortiz moving off-angle around front to hit Ortiz with a power shot with his left hand to the body or head. Lomachenko will be looking to get his punches off, he wants to land some bombs on Ortiz and make this look like yet just another easy win for him.
Ortiz needs to come into this fight like a pound for pound boxer and dominate this fight. Don’t dance, fight and fight his fight not Lomachenko’s fight. The one thing I love about Ortiz is that he has the ring IQ and skill to be a great technical fighter. I think Ortiz can mount a serious challenge to Lomachenko. Hand and foot speed, and punching power will be important for Ortiz in this fight.
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Jose Rivera and Angie Torres contributed to this story.
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