9/18/11

Mayweather KO's Ortiz!


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Floyd Mayweather scores fourth-round knockout of Victor Ortiz after getting headbutted
Floyd Mayweather walks from the corner after knocking out Victor Ortiz on Saturday night in Las Vegas. Maybe Victor Ortiz should’ve played within the rules, because the one thing he said Floyd Mayweather was, in pre-fight build-up, was a dirty fighter.
The way Mayweather dealt with Ortiz’s own dirty tactics showed, at least, that he knows how to deal with them.
Mayweather blasted out Ortiz and the Grand Rapids native won the World Boxing Council welterweight title for the second time in his career on a spectacular two-punch knockout at 59 seconds of the fourth round on Saturday night.
The debate was whether it was legal — and that debate prompted a scintillating mid-ring interview between Mayweather and HBO analyst Larry Merchant.
"HBO should fire you!" Mayweather exclaimed in cutting short the interview. "You don’t know s--- about boxing! You ain’t s---!"
"I wish I was 50 years younger," said Merchant, an Oklahoma University football player in the mid-1900s, "and I’d kick your ass."
What prompted the outcry was that referee Joe Cortez, seconds after calling Ortiz for a flagrant head butt, had put the fighters back together — but was looking away, and Ortiz was looking at him.
Mayweather, in the classic defend-yourself-at-all-times response, unleashed a left hook, then a flush right hand, which sent Ortiz plummeting backward into his own corner.
Cortez counted out Ortiz at 59 seconds of the round, making it Mayweather’s second-fastest knockout victory in a championship bout, and his fastest since knocking out Angel Manfredy in a two-round blitz in 1998.
The punches were reminiscent of when Arturo Gatti neglected to defend himself while complaining to the referee in a 2005 fight, and found himself victimized by a Mayweather knockdown for it. Until Saturday night, that was Mayweather’s second-fastest victory in a title fight, a sixth-round knockout.
As much as anything, the fight will be remembered for that post-fight interview.
"I don’t really think I could’ve kicked his ass 50 years ago," Merchant later joked on camera.
Floyd Mayweather celebrates his victory over Victor Ortiz.
The fourth round already had some fireworks going before the ending. Mayweather landed a big flurry early in the round, then Ortiz responded with the same, which got the crowd in an uproar.
Ortiz later landed another flurry of punches in Mayweather’s corner — but punctuated it with an obviously intentional headbutt.
"I’d tell him, ‘Floyd, I’m sorry, bro,’" Ortiz said, when asked what he would tell Mayweather about that infraction, if he could.
Cortez immediately took a point from Ortiz, broke the fighters, brought them back together, and the knockout ensued.
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For a night, the specter of a future fight with Manny Pacquiao recessed somewhere away from the forefront — though never far away — as the former pound-for-pound king came back from a 16 ½-month layoff to try to restake claim to that mantle.
Before the fight, the referee, Cortez, whose assignment prompted a written notice from the Ortiz camp to watch for Mayweather’s elbows and to prohibit him from turning his back on the opponent, told the challenger to watch the elbows. Mayweather laughed. Cortez responded that he was just passing along concerns of the other camp. The referee later told Ortiz’s trainer, Danny Garcia, that defensive-posture elbows were acceptable.
Mayweather, who at 34 was giving up 10 years to Ortiz in the biggest negative age differential of his career — as well as 14 pounds on HBO’s unofficial pre-fight scale, which had him at 150 pounds to 164 for Ortiz, after they officially weighed in the day before at 146½ and 147, respectfully — adopted a languid early pace in a laborious first round.
By midway through the second round, when Mayweather got Ortiz measured with the right hand, and forced the champion to press inside with telegraphed punches, the fight’s tone changed.
Mayweather (42-0, 26 KOs) began establishing the jab and a short left hook in a third round when he took a more stalking offensive posture, which created openings for lead rights — considered a vital weapon for a right-hander against a left-hander.
With his full arsenal measured, and Ortiz (29-3-2), of Garden City, Kan., unable to do anything about it, the fight turned into a one-way offensive display.
Ortiz tried. When Mayweather opened up his first big flurry early in the fourth round, Ortiz fired and missed — but moments later, when he caught Mayweather with a nice flurry of his own, it prompted a huge crowd response.
But less than a minute later, when Ortiz caught Mayweather in the corner, he was unable to stop himself from lunging forward with his head.
Until that moment, Mayweather wasn’t a dirty fighter. But he certainly showed that among his many exceptional attributes, he knows how to treat one.

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