By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz (29-3-2, 22 KO’s) and his manager Rolando Arellano are reportedly giving Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) only 30 days to decide on giving them a rematch or else they’ll be moving in another direction to try and get a rematch with IBF welterweight champion Andre Berto.
Ortiz says he’ll be a world champion again within six months with or without Mayweather fighting him again.
Los Angeles Times writer Lance Pugwire reports that Arellano thinks Mayweather will choose to take the Ortiz rematch instead of facing another opponent once he sees how good the pay per view numbers were for the Mayweather-Ortiz fight from last Saturday night. The fight could bring in anywhere from 1.4 million to 1.7 million pay per view buys according to Ortiz’s promoter Richard Schaefer.
Ortiz has history working against him in trying to land a quick rematch with Mayweather. In the past, Mayweather has tended to disappear for long periods after he gets a big payday. He goes into hibernation mode and spends up the money. Once his funds start to dip after a year or slightly longer, then Mayweather comes back for his next fight.
At 34, Mayweather Jr. can’t afford to keep doing this, as he’s getting up there in age and is limiting his career earning potential. However, Mayweather does things his own way and he’ll likely continue his trend of staying away from boxing for another year at the minimum. Ortiz might do well to start planning on a rematch with Berto.
Ortiz already beat Berto by a 12 round decision last April in a close fight. Berto wants a rematch, as he feels that his conditioning was off for the fight. He looked a lot better recently beating Jan Zaveck for the International Boxing Federation title.
There’s no question that the Ortiz vs. Mayweather bout brought in big PPV numbers, if not a huge ringside crowd. Mayweather’s do well on PPV, but not always in attendance. The fight ended with controversy when Mayweather stopped Ortiz with a left-right combination when he had just finished hugging him. The win didn’t give Mayweather the kind of positive attention that he likely wanted, but it’s unclear whether he cares enough to want to make better in a rematch.
The problem is the fight was one-sided after the 1st round, and it looked like Ortiz was well on his way to getting beaten had the fight gone longer. Ortiz didn’t do well enough for boxing fans to be highly interested in seeing a rematch between him and Mayweather, not when they’re being asked to pay $50+ to see the fight on PPV. Mayweather might be better off going after Amir Khan instead of facing Ortiz again. In that case, Mayweather will have to wait until at least the second part of 2012 to fight Khan, because the British star plans on fighting on December 10th and then in March 2012. He won’t be ready for a fight against Mayweather until at least July 2012 unless Mayweather can convince him to fight in March or April. Khan wants to fight a warm-up fight at welterweight to get him used to the division before facing Mayweather.
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