In the spirit of this week?s blockbuster movie Transformers: Rise of the Fallen, boxing?s top two young prospects Juan Manuel Lopez from Puerto Rico and Victor Ortiz from Oxnard, California heeded to Optimus Prime?s famous line ?One shall stand; one shall fall?. Stood and fall they did.
In the Atlantic City at the Boardwalk Hall in New Jersey, Juan Manuel Lopez continued his rise as one of boxing?s best fighters and perhaps one of the best the super bantamweights in recent memory by defeating Olivier Lontchi via TKO in the ninth round of their WBO super bantamweight title match. Lopez dropped Lontchi in rounds 2 and 9 and totally outclassed the little-known Canadian from the get-go. Lontchi?s corner threw in the towel before in-between rounds nine and ten ala De la Hoya against Pacquiao.
Over at the Staples Center in LA, Golden Boy?s golden prospect and according to Oscar De la Hoya, the most exciting boxer in the sport today suffered a 6th round knockout loss to Argentina?s Marcos Maidana. True to his word, Ortiz?s fight was exciting indeed unfortunately he did not come out on top in the end. Ortiz knocked Maidana down thrice in the first two rounds but was also knocked down in the first round. To his credit, Ortiz fought gallantly but his chin was given a reality check by Maidana?s power shots. In the 6th round the improbable happened, as Maidana whom a lot of people have not heard of here in the US prior to tonight?s fight, landed big shot after big shot while backing Ortiz in the corner. Ortiz was knocked down and obviously hurt. The referee had the ringside doctor check on Ortiz?s condition and after a quick assessment waved off the fight at the 2:14 mark.
The loss put a damper on Ortiz’s career which was about to take off only to be shot down tonight. It also placed doubts on Golden Boy Promotions as they are a having a rough couple of months starting from Ricky Hatton’s devastating loss to Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. pulling out due to an injury against Juan Manuel Marquez and rumors of less than impressive ticket sales for that bout, Shane Mosley not being able to land a big fight with Pacquiao and now the loss suffered by their most hyped young prospect. The loss also begs the question whether GBP can really develop talent like Top Rank has or whether they are just good at signing big chip fighters by attracting because of their relationship with HBO.
On the other hand, Top Rank continues its impressive run with the Lopez win. With the victories of Pacquiao, Cotto and now Lopez, Bob Arum is off to a great start to his summer. All is not over for Ortiz though. He is still young and still has a lot of potential. Perhaps going back to the Transformers theme, he can take a page from “the rise of the fallen”.
