By Chris Robinson
Victor Ortiz is still basking in the glow of his dramatic twelve round decision victory over previously undefeated Andre Berto, a performance that netted him the WBC welterweight championship of the world. Trading knockdowns with Berto to the crowd's delight at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut, Ortiz's dogged aggression and cleaner punching paved the way to a unanimous decision in a huge upset in what will go down as one of the year's best fights.
One interested spectator watching the action last night was interim WBA junior welterweight champion Marcos Maidana, who recently returned back home to Buenos Aires, Argentina after his spirited defeat of Erik Morales last week in Las Vegas. I had to ask Marcos whether he saw the action last night and what he thought of everything.
"Yes, I did. Great fight, indeed. It could have gone either way as they both fought quite open at times. But Ortiz was a fair winner," Maidana stated.
Maidana of course knows Ortiz very well, as he engaged in a similarly breathtaking tussle with the Oxnard-based fighter nearly two years ago at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. In that fight Maidana overcame knockdowns of his own before flooring Ortiz twice on his way to a sixth round TKO after Victor apparently opted not to continue in the sixth round.
That loss has seemed to haunt Ortiz, who has publicly questioned why exactly the media constantly brings it up. His win over Berto was so harrowing and gutsy that surely he has put the Maidana disaster behind him and even mentioned in the post-fight press conference that the crude Argentinean was never on his agenda.
"Maidana was never in my class," said Ortiz. "I never gave him respect, especially for not giving me a rematch."
I informed Maidana of Ortiz's statement and he was sure to lash back with some thoughts of his own.
"He is a liar or maybe somebody is lying to him since we were never offered the rematch with him. Never," Maidana exclaimed. "All of a sudden Ortiz started talking nonsense about me. I made him quit clearly when we met and he seems to be obsessed with me. Not my problem."
Ortiz has mentioned that he is done at 140 pounds and will be campaigning in the welterweight class or above from this point forward. Still, you can't help but to fancy a rematch between the two fighters sometime down the road and it is something Maidana is open to.
"I will face him again, provided that I get a convenient offer of course. But now he is in the 147-pound division and that could be an obstacle."