By Allen Fox: Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda – Two wrongs don’t make a right, in particularly when one of the fighters gets away with fouling while the other is penalized. This is the situation for last nights’ fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) and WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz (29-3-2, 22 KO’s).
Mayweather gets headbutted in the 4th round, Ortiz apologizes, and then gets brained by Mayweather while still in the process of apologizing before the action has resumed. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be hilarious. It’s just so wrong.
Moments earlier, Ortiz had given Mayweather a painful looking headbutt while teeing off on him. Why Ortiz did this I’ll never know, because he was doing really without the headbutt and didn’t seem to need that kind of thing to hurt Mayweather. The referee Joe Cortez took a point away from Ortiz.
I had no problem with that, but why Cortez didn’t take a point away from Mayweather when he fouled Ortiz immediately after this I don’t understand. I know some boxing fans feel that Ortiz got what he deserved for headbutting Mayweather, and that anything goes at that point.
However, if you’re going to penalized Ortiz for his wrongs, why isn’t Mayweather at least getting a point taken away for hitting Ortiz before the action has restarted? That is so wrong it’s not even funny. Of course, Mayweather is a star and Ortiz is much lower on the totem pole.
On one hand we’ve got a major star in Mayweather and the other you’re talking a relative small fry. Ortiz doesn’t bring in huge PPV numbers. His fights aren’t even pay per view until now. I think Mayweather got away with something that a lot of other fighters would have been disqualified for tonight.
To be sure, Ortiz pulled a dirty move, but what Mayweather did was far worse in my eyes because he tagged a guy when he wasn’t even ready. At least Mayweather was covering up when Ortiz headbutted him. Had Mayweather just been calmly talking to Ortiz and then got headbutted, it would have likely been a more painful reaction from Mayweather because he wouldn’t have expected. But to tag a guy when he’s not ready to get hit, that’s a cheap shot and it shouldn’t have counted.
I think if the situation was reversed and Ortiz was the one that hit Mayweather a cheap shot that knocked him flat, I don’t think Ortiz would have gotten away with it. I think he would have been disqualified on the spot. That’s what I believe, I think Mayweather is someone that is just too popular fight now and is going to get the benefit of the doubt on things like this.
You really got to feel for Ortiz right about now. He worked so hard to get to this point just to lose his title on a stoppage like this. It’s sad and unbelievable. Knowing boxing, the result wills stand, there won’t be a rematch and Ortiz will have to move on and hope maybe to get lucky in getting a fighter like Amir Khan to give him a shot once he moves up in weight.
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