By Chris Robinson
It was a surprising scene on January 11th when outlandish trainer Roger Mayweather was spotted at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building in Las Vegas, Nevada for the formal hearing of former champion Victor Ortiz.
Ortiz had faced off with Roger’s nephew Floyd Mayweather Jr. on September 17th and made a scene inside of the ring in the 4th round when he unleashed an intentional head butt along the ropes, an act that cost him a point from referee Joe Cortez. Moments later and the fight would be over, as Floyd Jr. caught an unsuspecting Ortiz with a left-right combination he never saw coming that dropped the 24-year old and ended the fight.
On December 19th Ortiz stated in an interview with MaxBoxing.com’s Radio Rahim that he had serious intentions of breaking Mayweather’s nose with his flagrant butts, a confession that raised suspicion from Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer, who summoned the fighter to come before the commission to explain himself.
Ortiz would do just that, claiming that his head butt was a reaction to the elbows he had been receiving from Mayweather, and was later granted with a one-fight license in order for him to push forward with his February 11th rematch with Andre Berto at the MGM Grand.
BoxingScene.com’s Rick Reeno was present at the hearing and was shocked to see Mayweather in the building, as he later found out that Roger had plans of speaking with the commission in order to get Ortiz’s license revoked.
And although Uncle Roger was late to the hearing and unable to get his point across, that doesn’t sway his obvious disdain towards Ortiz.
“I was trying to get them to do that, because anytime a mother****** intentionally head-butts somebody, and he already said he did, that’s what he said,” Roger told me recently from the Mayweather Boxing Club in Las Vegas. “Mother ******, you should be banned from boxing then.”
Roger was asked if his conviction was so strong because Ortiz had fouled someone from his family, but he instead pointed out that he is simply looking out for the sport as a whole.
“It aint so much because that’s my nephew, that’s my blood,” Roger continued. “Anyone who does that in the sport of boxing, I don’t want anybody getting hurt. That aint what boxing is about. Boxing is about doing things correctly and if a mother ****** aint going to fight correctly, then he needs to be banned.”
Ortiz’s talent is unquestioned but there are those who insist the Garden City, Kansas native is simply a loose cannon and can’t control himself under strenuous circumstances.
That’s a theory that Roger isn’t buying.
“It aint that he aint right. He’s right,” stated Roger. “It’s just that he was getting his a** whopped. He just tried to find way to bail out of the god damn fight. But I can’t see how they paid somebody and he head-butts somebody. I can’t see it. My thing is that I wanted to go see what he was saying and what he did. And that’s really why I went.”
His regard for Ortiz seeming to be at an all-time low, it made curious what Uncle Roger feels about Victor’s upcoming rematch with Berto and whether or not he feels he has a strong chance of losing.
The two fighters met last April in one of the year’s best fights as they traded a pair of knockdowns while Ortiz seemed to have the edge in pushing the tempo of the fight and staying a bit busier on the inside. It was definitely competitive but there was no doubting who the winner was on that night.
For Roger, there’s no reason to believe that Ortiz will come up short the second time around either.
“No. Berto would get his a** whipped. He got whooped before, aint nothing changed,” he stated.
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