By Mark Vester
Referee Joe Cortez has fired back at former champion Juan Manuel Marquez. In an earlier news brief that ran on BoxingScene.com, Marquez revealed that he rejected the use of Cortez as the referee for the upcoming fight with Juan Diaz, scheduled for February 28 in Houston, Texas.
Marquez told his promoters, Golden Boy, that he was concerned with the way Cortez officiated several fights that involved Mexican opponents - with a lot of focus on the terrible call with Humberto Soto being disqualified in last year's bout against Francisco Lorenzo. Soto was beating the hell out of Lorenzo, when Cortez issued a DQ call for Soto hitting the fighter as he was down, but a replay showed that no punch ever hit Lorenzo as he was on the mat.
"He is like the enemy of Mexican boxers. I asked for him not to appear in the ring [for the Diaz] fight and they assured me that he won't," Marquez told ESTO .
The comments reached Cortez, who issued a response to the claims of Marquez. He brought into play the first battle between Marquez and Manny Pacquiao. Cortez made it clear that he allowed the fight to continue, despite Marquez going down three times in the first round, and that alone should prove that he is far from biased against Mexican fighters.
"Those comments are completely groundless. Some of my best friends are Mexicans and I even have Mexican relatives. I truly don't know where those comments come from. If I was an enemy of the Mexicans, why did I give him the opportunity to continue when he was knocked down three times in the first fight against Manny Pacquiao. I let him continue and he had the fight of his life," Cortez said to Primera Hora.
As far as Marquez, and whoever else, being upset over what took place in the Soto vs. Lorenzo fight - Cortez says "the rules are the rules." As expected, Cortez is still not willing to admit that numerous replays by HBO clearly showed that Soto never hit Lorenzo when he was down. It should be pointed out that Marquez was mad at Cortez for not taking a point away from Pacquiao in the first encounter. Marquez always felt that Pacquaio hit him while he was down [fight 1, knockdown three] and Cortez did nothing about it - which may have angered him more when he saw the Soto-Lorenzo outcome.
"If Soto had not hit Lorenzo when he was down, I would not have disqualified him. The rules are the rules. The comments by Marquez are unjust," Cortez said.
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