Victor Ortiz v Nate Campbell: A step too far a step too soon?

by Daniel Ciminera: Since losing to Marcos Maidana back in June last year, Victor Ortiz has had some serious questions asked of him as a fighter. Especially surrounding his heart and commitment as he quit from the fight with Maidana and has since been criticised for perhaps not taking the loss seriously enough. Personally, I’d tend to agree with Ortiz’s sentiment that (quote) “I’m not gonna go out on my back, I’m not gonna lay down for nobody you know, I’d rather just, hey, you know, I’m gonna stop while I’m ahead and that way I can speak well when I’m older you know.” and later said “I don’t think I deserve to be gettin’ beat up like this”. Not from a fighter’s perspective but, from the angle that he is a young man with a long and prosperous career ahead of him. He does not need to be getting drawn into wars of he magnitude that could potentially have escalated to at this stage in his career.

Ortiz’s first fight back after his first defeat was against Antonio Diaz, a close friend and idol of his. The fight ended after round 6 when Diaz’s corner retired him due to a bad cut above the left eye. The fight was a good one from Ortiz, in that he showed he could get back on the proverbial horse and fight a solid opponent. Diaz proved to be the ideal opponent for Ortiz to regain some of the confidence he may have lost in quitting on Maidana as Diaz pressured and stalked him for the entire fight, even after being himself dropped in the 3rd round from a crashing left hook counter, proving that Ortiz can fight under constant pressure, albeit patient pressure, not the ferocious kind Maidana subjected him to.

After Diaz, Ortiz moved onto Hector Alatorre, this past Thursday night at the Club Nokia arena in Los Angeles, a natural lightweight, whom on the face of it looked like he was forced to put on a tonne of weight in order to fight Ortiz at welterweight. My opinion is that Alatorre was brought in at this weight with zero conditioning so that Ortiz could get some rounds under his belt and practice how to tire an opponent rather than trying to knock out a fresh one. A skill which had he been able to employ against Maidana, would probably have heeded a better result. It was not an impressive win, ok he got the late stoppage but, you can’t help but feel he is, or should be, further along in his career than this performance would lead you to believe. Perhaps if the Diaz and Alatorre fights had been switched around, it may have made more sense in terms of progress.

Against both though, Ortiz stuck to a clear game plan and got the job done. Something he would not have done if, like some say, he was now shot from his beating. However, there were some serious mistakes made by Ortiz in both of these fights. His defence is very slack, especially once he lands clean and tries to throw some fast, hard leather. Maidana exploited this, and future opponents may well follow suit. Also, for a boxer touted as being “fast, accurate and powerful”, Ortiz only landed 37% of his shots against Diaz, and only landed 4 scoring shots in the opening round, which to me is hardly accurate, it is distinctly average.

With Ortiz at such a pivotal moment in his career right now, it could be said that he he is taking too biga risk in taking his next step up too soon (they will be criticised no matter what they do won’t they?!), for on May the 15th, he is scheduled to fight seasoned veteran Nate Campbell (33/5/1). While no spring chicken, Campbell is more than capable of bringing an intense, competitive, melting pot of a fight to Ortiz, who is likely to have to go the 12 scheduled rounds this time out as Campbell is a durable customer who has done the rounds and has the experience to know how to take Ortiz into deeper waters away from his game plan. Campbell, as he shown against opponents like Juan Diaz, is more than happy to stand in front of an aggressive fighter and trade with him. If Ortiz doesn’t tighten up that slack defence of his, Campbell will show him what happens and in a far slicker, more clinical way than Maidana did.

Lets not forget that while Ortiz has awe inspiring power in both hands, Amir Khan stopped him in 2003 as an amateur and he can be hit cleanly and often. If Nate can take the big shots from Ortiz, he certainly has the quality and power to end the fight early. However, if Ortiz puts his trust in his corner and sticks to the game plan, does exactly what he’s told and keeps his defence nice and tight, he can definitely add a 6th defeat to Campbell’s record. Having said that, my hunch is that if Ortiz does not manage some early brilliance and take the knockout, Campbell will take him further and further out to sea as the fight goes on and take the decision by a comfortable margin.

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