by Bill Emes

At a recent media roundtable discussion in Atlantic City, which promoters put together to officially announce the upcoming Andre Berto-Victor Ortiz rematch on February 11th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the former WBC welterweight champion Ortiz fielded questions on a variety of topics, from PED testing for the bout with Berto, to how his mindset was following his fourth round knockout loss last September to pound for pound great Floyd Mayweather Jr.

When asked if he had any confidence that Mayweather would ever grant him a rematch, he responded: 

"The way I was catching Floyd, I didn't think it was gonna happen at all, and I was right.  Everyone was saying that I was getting beat one-sidedly, you go back and put it on and turn off the sound and stuff - I wasn't losing the fight. I started catching him and you see him panic a little bit, so someone was definitely in trouble especially as the fight went longer, if it would have gotten longer I thought, but hey it happens."

Ortiz, who stated he only wants the best of the best, also welcomed a fight with Manny Pacquiao.  But that fight would include a giant hurdle of course, with Ortiz once being a member of the Top Rank stable, and later defected to Top Rank's bitter promotional rival Golden Boy Promotions. With Pacquiao currently signed with Bob Arum and Top Rank, that makes a Pacquiao-Ortiz bout extremely unlikely.

Another intriguing matchup, should he get past Berto and can't immediately secure a big fight with either Mayweather or Pacquiao, would be a showdown with current middleweight WBC Diamond Champion Sergio Martinez.  Martinez, who currently is awaiting word on his finalized opponent for March 17th, was said to be walking around at 158-pounds as early as last month.  Martinez has gone on record earlier this year stating his willingness to drop as low as 150 pounds to take on big name challenges in catch-weight fights at the junior middleweight limit.

Ortiz, when asked if he would be open to fighting Martinez in a catchweight fight at 150-pounds, responded by saying:

"Yeah, why not, that'd be nice. I don't have any trouble making any kind of weight, not from 140-147, so 154, that's actually eating for days, but yeah, why not, he's a great fighter as well."