Danny Garcia made no bones about the concern held having Joe Cortez refereeing the contest between his charge, WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz, and Floyd Mayweather here on Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
“Yes, Floyd is a sneaky, dirty fighter,” Garcia concurred to Telegraph Sport. But then, many great boxing champions have been, right under referees’ noses. It just comes with the territory. Call it sleight of hand, or whatever? Muhammad Ali used to hold his opponents by the back of the head with one glove ? and let fly with the other. He got away with it. Time and again.
Mayweather knows how to mix it. Sure, he is brilliant defensively, but has the canny ability to look after himself in the ring. Par excellence. Garcia, as expected, believes his man has a method for Mayweather. But don’t they all say that? He also believes that too many of Mayweather’s opponents have fought him “in the same way”.
“They show him respect. We are not going to fight him dirty, but we will put pressure on him, and Victor can box, too,” explained Garcia in the vast media room housed beside the MGM Grand Garden Arena, a hub for activity. Mike Tyson bounced through here on Thursday, did a couple of radio interviews with ESPN 1100 radio, and left. As an aside, I had the privilege of joining the host Steve Cofield on the ESPN 1100 show a couple of hours later.
But back to Garcia, who held court for 40 minutes with the media. Faith is strong come this time of the week. The work has been done. It is a matter of counting down the hours. But they have planned meticulously for Mayweather.
