Deal to add heavyweight Luis Ortiz to Canelo Alvarez-Liam Smith card nearly final

Unbeaten Cuban heavyweight Luis Ortiz is close to agreeing on a deal to become an attractive addition to the card for the Canelo Alvarez-Liam Smith junior-middleweight title fight Sept. 17, officials familiar with the talks said Friday.

The 37-year-old Ortiz (25-0, 22 knockouts) will fight for the interim World Boxing Assn. world heavyweight title against Russia’s Alexander Ustinov (33-1, 24 KOs) on the HBO pay-per-view card. AT&T Stadium outside Dallas and T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas are possible sites for the card.

The Ortiz-Ustinov winner will be positioned to fight the winner of the rescheduled Tyson Fury-Wladimir Klitschko WBA title bout on July 9 in Manchester, England.

Ortiz has been impressive in knocking out Bryant Jennings and Tony Thompson within the last year, and the 6-foot-4 southpaw injects further life into a division that boasts young champions Deontay Wilder of Alabama and England’s Anthony Joshua.

There is also the possibility that Alvarez’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, will place unbeaten super-bantamweight Diego De La Hoya, in the pay-per-view opener against an opponent yet to be named.

“We want him to be in a competitive fight,” Golden Boy executive Eric Gomez said Friday of De La Hoya’s cousin at Golden Boy’s “LA Fight Club” card at The Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

There’s also been talk that a rematch of the entertaining April 15 battle between super-welterweights Jesus Soto Karass and Yoshihiro Kamegai could land on the Alvarez-Smith card.

Mexico’s Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) has been ridiculed for looking to fight England’s World Boxing Organization champion Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) instead of fighting unbeaten, three-belt middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.

Gomez said it’s part of a plan to work the 25-year-old Alvarez up to 160 pounds, with a Dec. 10 fight already scheduled with HBO.

While Golovkin is close to finalizing a title defense against England’s Chris Eubank Jr. in September, he also wants to fight later this calendar year, and Gomez said the possibility of a doubleheader featuring separate Alvarez and Golovkin fights would boost that December card to a pay-per-view event.

Gomez also said there’s a possibility an Alvarez-Golovkin fight could happen next May, not September, depending on the outcomes and public interest in the upcoming fights.