Deontay Wilder vs Luis Ortiz to be cancelled after Cuban heavyweight tests positive for banned substances

The president of the WBC on Friday announced that Luis Ortiz had failed a drugs test, scuppering his highly anticipated heavyweight title fight with Deontay Wilder, which had been scheduled for November 4.

On Friday morning Mauricio Sulaiman revealed on Twitter that Ortiz had tested positive for banned substances in Voluntary Anti-Doping Association testing, prior to his contest with the undefeated WBC champion Wilder.

Ortiz’s ‘A’ sample tested positive for the diuretics chlorothaizide and hydrochlorothiazide, which can be used as masking agents for performance enhancing drug use are both on the VADA banned list. The Cuban can request for his ‘B’ samples to be tested at his own expense, but is yet to confirm whether he plans on doing so. It is exceptionally rare for ‘B’ samples to rest differently from the ‘A’ sample.

Although the VADA are yet to release full details of the failed test, which Ortiz is understood to have taken last week, the fight between the pair is now expected to be cancelled. Wilder and Ortiz were scheduled to meet in the main event of a Showtime organised card at the Barclays Centre in New York.

This is not the first time that Ortiz has tested positive for a banned substance. The undefeated southpaw tested positive for Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, following his first-round knockout of Nigeria’s Lateef Kayode in September 2014.

Wilder had even warned Ortiz not to take a banned substance in the build-up to their fight, attacking the Cuban for his chequered past at a New York news conference to announce the contest. “Stay clean, because we'll be checking,” Wilder said. “Stay clean. Don't f*** this up for me, nor you, because I'm gonna prove to the world that I am the best.”

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The news will come as a desperate blow to the great American champion Wilder, who was scheduled to fight Ortiz the week after Anthony Joshua defends the WBA and IBF belts against Kubrat Pulev in Cardiff.

This is the third time in the past 18 months that one of his opponents has failed a drugs test and been forced to withdraw from a fight. In May 2016 he was scheduled to fight in Moscow against Alexander Povetkin, only for the Russian to test positive for meldonium.

And in February 2017 he was forced to find a new opponent after the Polish boxer Andrzej Wawrzyk tested positive for the anabolic steroid Stanozolol Metabolites. He found the Californian Gerald Washington as a late-notice replacement and stopped him in the fifth round to extend his professional record to 38-0.

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“I can verify the information Mauricio [Sulaiman] put out,” Lou DiBella, the promoter of the fight, told the American broadcaster ESPN.

“I'm flabbergasted and particularly crestfallen for my fighter. Deontay Wilder is a great champion and a clean champion and probably has been victimized more than any other fighter in the history of the sport.”

DiBella added that it was at this stage too soon to say what would happen to the November 4 card and whether Wilder would fight a new opponent.

One option for the American would be to elevate Bermane Stiverne, who is his mandatory challenger, from his undercard bout against Dominic Breazeale, who lost to Joshua last June. Wilder previously fought Stiverne in January 2015, defeating him on a unanimous decision.

The British heavyweight Dillian Whyte, who is the reigning WBC International heavyweight champion and sits third in the WBC heavyweight rankings, wasted no time in throwing his hat into the ring, instructing his promoter Eddie Hearn to “get it made” on Twitter.

A victory for Whyte over Wilder would set up an all-British title showdown with Joshua, but Hearn has previously accused the American of ducking the 29-year-old Brixton based heavyweight.