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LUIS ORTIZ
“I’m 100 percent ready for this fight. We never stopped working after my last fight and I’m going to show it on December 1. I love staying active. I just want to keep fighting and showing off my skills.
“I’ve only taken off about a month total since fighting Wilder in March, so I still feel sharp and like my training is just continuous. The training stays the same, and once we get the opponent locked in we can focus on a game plan.
“Travis Kauffman is a strong fighter who came up fighting in Philadelphia. I know that’s he’s a tough guy who’s going to come to fight and I’m going to be prepared it.
“I think that my performance against Wilder and since that fight have warranted a rematch. I had Wilder hurt, I just made mental mistakes during the fight. I was fatigued, but I did not get knocked out flat. The referee did his job, but I feel that I did enough to merit another shot. I’ve worked hard to correct the mistakes I made and in a rematch, it would be a different ending.
“Wilder vs. Fury will be an interesting fight. Wilder is fighting someone taller than him for the first time and that could make it go a lot of ways. But I really do believe Wilder is going to win and win by knockout.”
HERMAN CAICEDO, Ortiz’s Trainer
“Luis Ortiz went through the experience of what happened in the Wilder fight and that’s the best way to overcome it in the future. He lived it, he breathed it and now, he’s going to go out and earn a chance to change the outcome.
“We have no excuses for the way the Wilder fight ended. I thought Ortiz was doing fine, but Wilder’s punches certainly had an effect. It’s heavyweight boxing, so being knocked down first in the fifth round definitely drew from the power supply.
“Unfortunately when he let everything go in the seventh round against Wilder, and almost knocked Wilder out, that drained him completely. Wilder was able to recover and capitalize. But we now know what we have to do in a rematch.
“Ortiz told me that when he first buzzed Wilder he really saw it all right there. He saw himself with the WBC championship. He saw himself knocking out Anthony Joshua and becoming undisputed champion. So he decided to go for it all right there.”