by David P. Greisman
The subplots were manifold, each presented, digested and dissected: the acrimonious relationship between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his father; the abandonment of Victor Ortiz as a child by his parents; the falling out between Ortiz’s trainer, Danny Garcia, and Garcia’s brother, Robert Garcia, who once had trained Ortiz himself. There were mentions of Mayweather’s idol, money, and Ortiz’s idol, Oscar De La Hoya. There were references to Floyd Mayweather’s legal problems and Roger Mayweather’s health issues.
Those secondary storylines supplemented the primary conflict. But for those shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars to see Ortiz vs. Mayweather in person or spending $60 to $70 to watch the fight on television, it was “Money May” who made them pay.
For six years he has made them pay with his mouth. He is abrasive and aggressive, a boisterous braggart. He captured those characteristics, augmenting his marketability by making himself into “Money Mayweather.” Then he amplified himself further, turning from character to caricature and ensuring he was a man boxing fans either wanted to see or wanted to see humbled.
For 15 years he has made his fighting foes pay in the ring, making them look offensively impotent, making himself seem defensively impenetrable, making defeating him appear to be patently impossible.
For all of the subplots – the ugly argument with his father caught on camera, the numerous criminal and civil cases against him, the constant conversation about why he and rival phenom Manny Pacquiao are yet to fight – Floyd Mayweather Jr. remains unparalleled in dedication to his craft and discipline in the gym. He tunes out the distractions, then disrupts and sometimes destroys his opponents.
Victor Ortiz gave in to distraction, to a costly lapse in discipline. He would be made to pay for it.
With Mayweather pinned against the ropes toward the end of the fourth round, Ortiz decided to stop launching punches and instead launched himself, blatantly propelling the top of his head into Mayweather’s face. The referee, Joe Cortez, pulled Ortiz away, then turned away to pause the clock with nine seconds remaining. Ortiz walked back over to Mayweather, placing his right arm over him in an embrace and planting a kiss to his right cheek.
Cortez again brought Ortiz away, taking him around the ring and taking a point away from him, a penalty for the foul. Mayweather walked out toward a neutral corner, glaring at Ortiz incredulously. The two tapped left gloves, and Cortez positioned Ortiz in the neutral corner opposite Mayweather.
“Let’s go,” Cortez said, and he turned away from the fighters and toward the timekeeper. As Mayweather and Ortiz approached, Cortez, standing to their side, asked an official ringside if the bell had rung to end the round. Ortiz placed his gloves out toward Mayweather’s hips, apparently attempting to apologize once more, and stepped forward for another embrace. Mayweather placed his gloves on Ortiz’s shoulders, then planted his feet as Ortiz backed away, hands at his sides.
Mayweather threw a left hook that dazed Ortiz and finished with a right cross that downed him. Cortez caught the sight of Ortiz falling to the floor, then counted to 10 as he failed to rise.
Ortiz had fouled in the heat of battle, forgot he was in the heat of battle and was felled in the heat of battle.
It was both an opportunity and an opening for Mayweather, who did as he had done for the previous four rounds, taking Ortiz’s aggression and using it against him.
Never should the game plan against Mayweather call for out-boxing him; he is too smart too swift, too gifted, too great. Rather, the strategy is to overwhelm him. If Mayweather’s mastery is in making you miss more often than not, then you must keep on throwing. Mayweather’s defense discourages his opponents, opening them up for his own offense.
Mayweather had been criticized by some in the past for his mobility, for moving away from slower or stronger fighters, preferring a momentary retreat that makes him almost untouchable over staying in the line of fire and rendering himself more vulnerable. He vowed to stand in with Ortiz, taking aim not at the naysayers – Mayweather tunes out all distractions – but at Ortiz’s flaws.
Conventional planning when an orthodox fighter faces a southpaw calls for right crosses, the punch less likely to be parried by his foe’s front hand. Ortiz has been particularly susceptible to right hands in the past. That would be no different against Mayweather.
Mayweather would lead with the right hand, or he would jab with his left – “blindingly fast” an apt description when considering its intent – before following with the right cross.
Neither man landed often in the first round. Mayweather’s reflexes remained quick enough to dodge or duck Ortiz’s power punches. Ortiz, younger at 24 and gifted himself, albeit to a lesser degree than Mayweather, also had success at evading these earliest attacks. Mayweather landed but 9 of 41 punches in the opening stanza, a 22 percent connect rate, a far cry from the 46 percent connect rate he’d averaged in his previous five fights. Ortiz landed less, though, 5 of 42, the 12 percent connect rate even lower than Mayweather’s past opponents’ paltry average of 16 percent.
If Ortiz were to overwhelm Mayweather, he’d have to do much more – and much better – than that.
The first round is traditionally the time for fighters to feel each other out, to see what the other man has and what he hasn’t. Mayweather and Ortiz both picked up the tempo to start the second. Ortiz moved forward, slightly closing the distance between himself and Mayweather, seeking either to catch him at the end of his punches or to get inside and send hooks to his body and head.
Mayweather, too, picked moments to move forward. A power-puncher in the mold of Ortiz is less comfortable when he is not leading the action. And that, in turn, led Ortiz to come back at Mayweather, leaning forward with lefts that left Ortiz’s chin exposed to Mayweather’s rights.
Ortiz walked through those punches and forced Mayweather against the ropes, Ortiz putting his head down and pushing it into Mayweather’s. Mayweather landed three right hands in succession in the final minute of the second round. Ortiz again walked into them and through them, and twice more he dug the top of his head against Mayweather’s face.
Prior to the fight Ortiz’s camp had complained about Mayweather’s tactics in the clinch, about the forearms and elbows Mayweather had wedged against Ricky Hatton’s neck to create space between himself and Hatton. It was Ortiz that went dirty against Mayweather, limiting the room between them and attempting to send a message of Ortiz as bully.
Ortiz was actually the bull, and Mayweather’s sword thrusts would become increasingly pointed and punishing.
In the second round Mayweather landed 15 of 47 punches, a 32 percent connect rate, but on power punches he was 13 of 27, hitting Ortiz with nearly one out of every two. Ortiz remained in single digits: 8 of 41, or 20 percent, in power shots, 8 of 46, or 17 percent, overall.
Ortiz tentatively sent out three jabs in the opening seconds of the third, none landing. Mayweather showed him up by retorting with three of his own, all three landing. Ortiz, knowing he’d shaken off Mayweather’s counter right hands in the previous rounds, attempted to charge Mayweather into a corner once more. Now Mayweather responded with a check left hook, and then a second as Ortiz tried again.
A gunfight isn’t won by the deadliest weapon, but the most accurate. Ortiz couldn’t hit Mayweather, and he was taking fire whenever he tried sending out shots. Defense discourages and opens up for offense. A minute into the third round and Mayweather had Ortiz backing up again. That lasted for about 40 seconds before Ortiz tried coming forward with a left hand – and moved into Mayweather’s cleanest, flushest right hand yet.
It happened again. And again. And then another check hook. With 20 seconds to go in the round, Mayweather had landed 17 punches. Ortiz had landed two. Mayweather would go 22 of 53 on the round, 42 percent of his shots landing, including 16 of 29 power punches, more than half of what he threw. Ortiz was 4 of 33 overall, just 12 percent. After throwing 36 power punches in the first round and 41 in the second, he could only get off 14 in the third.
Mayweather, as promised, stayed in front of Ortiz in the fourth. Prior to the fight Ortiz might have thought that would be precisely where he wanted Mayweather. Now he knew better. Mayweather hit him with a jab and a right hand, then a right hand and a jab, then a jab and a right uppercut, followed by a left hook, a right hook, a left hook and a right uppercut. Ortiz tried to grab Mayweather, and Mayweather stepped back and hit Ortiz flush with another left hook and right hook combination.
Ortiz weathered the barrage, and with Mayweather momentarily stopping, Ortiz bulled him back to the corner, ducking his head down against Mayweather’s face, looping a couple of right hands toward the rear of Mayweather’s head, and then butted his head into Mayweather. It was not as blatant as the foul that would come a couple of minutes later, but it was enough to draw a warning from Cortez.
Mayweather kept landing. Ortiz kept coming. You must keep on throwing. And he did, landing a right hook here, a left hand there, all when Mayweather was against the ropes. Mayweather shook his head and brought the fight back into the center of the ring.
Mayweather walked Ortiz down, pot-shotting him until Ortiz, unwilling to keep moving backward, sought to retaliate. He came forward with a flurry of punches, driving Mayweather back to the ropes. Mayweather was on defense but not in danger. Ortiz ducked his head down, just as he had done throughout the round, just as he had done throughout the fight. This time he jumped up with a head butt and followed with a left hand.
The post-apology knockout soon followed.
Victor Ortiz lost his cool in the heat of battle and lost the fight because of it. As with after every Floyd Mayweather fight, the critics would make themselves heard. His left hook and right hand had been cheap shots, they said. He didn’t need to end the fight this way, they said.
They were right. Mayweather was winning the fight, and he very well could have stopped Ortiz later without throwing punches when Ortiz was least expecting them.
This was the heat of battle, though. Ortiz had just fouled Mayweather, drawing blood from his mouth. Mayweather might not have done what some consider to be the right thing, but in no way was what he did wrong.
We ask soldiers to shoot to kill the enemy on the battlefield but to show mercy if the other side is captured alive. We ask fighters to step into the ring with the intent of sending his opponent into unconsciousness, and we ask them to be sportsmanlike.
Mayweather knocked down Arturo Gatti on a break. He punched Shane Mosley when Mosley tried to touch gloves. This is a sport, but it is a sport at odds with itself. Fouled and furious in the heat of battle, Floyd Mayweather Jr. had every right to pull the trigger.
The 10 Count
1. Let’s have a rematch – not between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Victor Ortiz, but rather between Victor Ortiz and Andre Berto.
2. I’d love the fact that CNN.com had articles before and after Ortiz-Mayweather featured prominently if not for the rational conclusion that it only happened because of CNN’s corporate relationship with HBO.
It is pretty obvious that the editorial wall is now being blatantly broken down in an attempt to drive pay-per-view purchases. First Ortiz and Oscar De La Hoya appeared on CNN talk show “Piers Morgan Tonight,” and then a story headlined “Mayweather out to prove he’s still money” was in the top spot on the news website. We can expect more in advance of Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez.
Granted, it’s a great way of attempting to attract additional buyers, and there should be more cross-pollination between sister networks. There would be nothing wrong with CNN airing advertisements for HBO boxing cards during its commercial breaks, for instance.
But will Piers Morgan have on guests for other comparably important sporting events? Will Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos and Dana White make it onto CNN or CNN.com in advance of the Nov. 12 UFC card on FOX?
We already know the answer to that. And that’s why this is the right direction for the boxing business but the wrong direction for media ethics.
3. CNN.com did actually have other boxing-related coverage this weekend not related to its commercial interests: an article about former 154-pound titleholder Yuri Foreman and his religious pursuits.
It wasn’t a bad piece, and it’s nice to actually have some positive mainstream attention for the sport for once. This wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, however, since numerous articles that had been written about the topic in the past few years. And the headline wasn’t close to being accurate:
“One of the world’s best boxers is training to be a rabbi.”
Oy.
4. It’s almost better that Erik Morales won Saturday in what was a sham of a title fight but was otherwise a good tilt between him and the undefeated but unheralded Pablo Cesar Cano.
Had Cano won, how quickly do you think the World Boxing Council would’ve stripped Cano and given Morales another shot at “making history” (cough, cough) and becoming the first Mexican fighter to win a fourth “world title” (cough, cough)?
5. Nov. 10, 2011: Hasim Rahman will be inducted into the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame.
Nov. 11, 2011: The World Boxing Association responds by making Rahman its interim heavyweight champion.
6. Separated at birth: Nacho Beristain (Juan Manuel Marquez’s trainer) and Mr. Johnson (Sesame Street character).
7. Boxers Behaving Badly update, part one: Troubled former featherweight titleholder Scott Harrison is out of jail after two and a half years behind bars, according to British newspaper The Sun.
Harrison, 34, had been incarcerated for assaulting a police officer and another man and attempting to steal a car in 2006. He’s not necessarily done with legal problems, though, not if prosecutors in Spain pursue another assault case against him, this one dating back to 2007, the newspaper said.
Harrison hasn’t fought since November 2005, when he outpointed Nedal Hussein. He is, of course, pursuing a comeback. His record is 25-2-2 (14 knockouts).
8. Yes, it’s seriously been that long since Scott Harrison’s shenanigans landed him in The 10 Count.
9. Boxers Behaving Badly update, part two: Tony Booth – the famed British designated opponent with a record of 52-105-9 – has been sentenced to nine years in prison on drug distribution and counterfeiting charges, according to the Hull and East Riding Mail.
The 41-year-old pleaded guilty in July to two counts of conspiracy to supply cocaine and one count each of passing counterfeit notes and conspiracy to pass counterfeit notes. Several other men were arrested in the case.
Booth last fought in November 2008, leaving boxing with a win. He is better known, however, for his losses, including being the fall guy for a debuting David Haye.
10. The creative minds behind some of today’s pay-per-view titles have somehow decided to give Bernard Hopkins vs. Chad Dawson the title of “Believe it or Not!”
I guess it makes sense. As in: “Believe it or not, but some people will actually buy this.”
David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com.
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