Victory tainted.
Anything more can you say?
True, a fighter must protect himself at all times. And Victor Ortiz made the biggest mistake of his career by thinking Floyd Mayweather is accepting his second open-handed apology after they were separated by referee Joe Cortez.
There was still no signal from Cortez for the two fighters to resume boxing but that did not mean they cannot hit each other.
However, Cortez was clearly still telling the judges to deduct a point for the deliberate headbutt delivered by Ortiz in the closing seconds of the fourth round just as he was pressing and connecting heavily at Mayweather. The referee therefore has not clearly given his imprimatur for the fight to resume after he separated both fighters for the headbutt.
From the replays, Ortiz clearly banged his head towards Floyd?s chin.
The point deduction was justified.
But that cannot be said of Mayweather who clearly punched in a deliberate and treacherous manner just as Ortiz was still extending his apologies.
Dirty as Ortiz was for that headbutt, Floyd was even dirtier with his unsportsmanlike conduct.
Why? Floyd too was too busy with his elbows.
At the time of the stoppage, Floyd was ahead in points and was cruising along, toying with Ortiz until he got tagged several times in the closing moments of the fourth round. The momentum in that round was going Ortiz? way, until that fateful headbutt.
If anything, Cortez officiated the match poorly, at least in those closing seconds.
He should have pulled Ortiz away from Mayweather and tagged the boxer along with him to signal a point deduction to all judges sitting on the three sides of the ring the way Tony Weeks did in the Vargas-Lopez fight in the Mayweather-Ortiz undercard.
Mayweather was sharp with his right leads and stiff left jabs and often waited in the middle of the ring for Ortiz to engage obviously not oblivious of the former champion?s power.
While he was pinpoint with his punches and was dominating the fight, Mayweather really never came close to knocking down Ortiz in the controversy-laden abbreviated fight until that point.
For the record it was a knockout victory for Floyd but it was not one he should be proud about.
It was a cheap knockout victory.
Now, if only he decides to fight the man he should be fighting, that will become another big story.
