Wilder halts Ortiz to set course for Joshua fight

DEONTAY WILDER proved his world heavyweight championship mettle with a knock-down and drag-out stoppage of Luis Ortiz in the oldfashioned New York tradition. Kell Brook put his repaired eye sockets in focus and his career back on track by knocking out Sergey Rabchenko to the delight of his hometown Sheffield crowd. Over to you, Anthony Joshua and Amir Khan. Wilder (below) came through hellfire to beat the previously unbeaten Ortiz into 10th-round oblivion. Brook beat a feeble Rabchenko to turn his must-win comeback fight into a two-round cakewalk. Now it is up to Joshua and Khan to fulfil their end of the mega-millions deal in the next few weeks. By beating WBO champion Joseph Parker in Cardiff on March 31, Joshua can add another belt to his bargaining power for a mid-summer unification spectacular against WBC title-holder Wilder. By living up to expectations against Phil Lo Greco in Liverpool on April 21, Khan can bring closer to reality a showdown with Brook. Wilder was made to toil on Saturday night. Having decked Ortiz in the fifth, he was caught by a hefty counter-punch in the seventh. But he stormed back, stunning Ortiz with a huge right at the close of the ninth before finishing the Cuban, who was knocked down twice more, in the 10th. ‘I’m ready for you,’ Wilder told AJ after the fight. Brook, meanwhile, has moved up to super-welterweight and looked the part against Rabchenko, who was duly plucked in the second. At no point was Brook at risk of further damage to his eye sockets, both of which needed the insertion of titanium plates after his poundings by Gennady Golovkin and Errol Spence Jnr. He said: ‘Everyone knows I’ve wanted to fight Khan for years. This year, it’s time.’