It’s been a little over a week since WBC welterweight title-holder Floyd Mayweather 42-0 (26) stopped former title-holder Victor Ortiz 29-3-2 (22) at the end of the fourth round. And from the moment Mayweather dropped and stopped Ortiz with a perfectly placed left-hook and right cross to the chin, there’s been much written about Joe Cortez’s ineptness as a referee and Mayweather’s unsportsmanlike behavior during the bout.
Let’s get Cortez out of the way first – yes, he clearly was out of position and did a horrible job governing the fight at the end. But that had no effect on the result, that blame goes to Victor Ortiz. Did Victor really think he could try to headbutt Mayweather and then try to make friends with him and perhaps suck him into falling for his own bending of the rules conduct later in the fight? As we saw Ortiz learned the hard way because Mayweather was too experienced and smart to be bettered by Ortiz at that game.
It’s been agonizing hearing and reading the cookbook analyst banter back and forth saying what Mayweather should’ve done or what they would’ve done in that situation. As most know this column has not treaded lightly when it comes to objective criticism and critique of Floyd Mayweather the fighter. But I can’t, nor should anyone else yell fire when there isn’t a whiff of smoke in the air just so they can jump on Mayweather because they don’t like him.
During the past week it’s been written a thousand times how the first thing fighters are taught when they go into the gym is “protect yourself at all time.” Yeah, in a perfect world that sounds great, but it’s not true, simply because a fighter coming into the gym for the first time is so far away from fighting that it’s not even a thought. That aside, it is repeated by the referee before all fights in the dressing room and at ring center before the start of the bout. Actually, it’s the last thing a fighter hears before the bout. However, that doesn’t matter for this discussion because the focal point is more centered around whether or not Mayweather did anything wrong or illegal – to which the answer is, no!
