LAS VEGAS ? Victor Ortiz was staring at the floor, speaking dispassionately, rarely making eye contact, when someone mentioned that fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena could be a life-changing event.
The dashing 24-year-old with the dazzling smile lifted his head, locked his eyes on a man across from him and smirked.
?Life-changing event? This? You think for a guy like me, a guy who has been through what I?ve been through, that this is a life changing event?? Ortiz asked. ?Try living in my shoes for a while and see if you think a fight is a life-changing event. My life changed years ago, bro.?
Ortiz?s life changed in unimaginable ways at an age when most of his peers still believed in Santa Claus. When he was just seven years old, his mother abandoned him.
?There one minute, gone the next,? Ortiz said with a shake of the head.
A few years later, his father skipped as well, leaving his three young children to fend for themselves. He grew up in Garden City, Kan., essentially on his own. He learned early on how cruel life could be, but the experience also proved something to him, a trait that is essential for a boxer.
The soft-spoken boy who sang in the school choir and played in piano recitals discovered a determination and an inner toughness that belied his cherubic face. He was a survivor. Life might knock him down, but as much as it hurt deep inside, he kept getting up and fighting back.
The biggest fight of his life was making it to his 16th birthday.
To Ortiz, a fight for the World Boxing Council welterweight title against the 41-0 Mayweather, who is ? along with Manny Pacquiao ? one of the two biggest stars in boxing, is not all that intimidating. It is, he has repeatedly insisted, simply another day at the office.
