By Eric Thomas: WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz (29-2-2, 22 KO’s) plans on whipping undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. (41-0, 25 KO’s) tonight, removing his unbeaten record and ending his career all on the same night in their fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ortiz said “I’m here [in Las Vegas] to end a career and start a new career.”
It’s hard to imagine Mayweather getting beaten by anyone at this point, particularly an inexperienced slugger like the 24-year-old Ortiz. However, in looking at a lot of the video footage of the two during HBO’s Mayweather-Ortiz 24/7 series, it’s hard to miss the fact that Ortiz is looking a lot more powerful compared to the 34-year-old Mayweather.
Additionally, Mayweather looks older, like he’s really aged in the past year since his win over Shane Mosley last year in May. Ortiz looks like he’s hitting the prime of his career right now at 24, and is showing a lot of power in his workouts.
Mayweather doesn’t have the same size or strength that Ortiz possesses. But another thing that seems to have been missed by a lot of writers and fans is the speed of Ortiz. He’s not only powerful, but he’s got a lot of hand speed as well going for him. Ortiz obviously isn’t as fast as Mayweather, but he’s close enough to where Mayweather isn’t going to have much of an advantage in that department.
When you look at the fact that Ortiz is bigger, stronger, the harder puncher, younger and the busier fighter, it leaves Mayweather in a real bind for this fight. The only way Mayweather can win is if he can use his legs to keep moving to keep him out of harm’s way. A young Mayweather would have no problems moving around the ring, but he’s not young anymore. Mayweather hasn’t shown the ability to move around the ring since before his fight with Oscar De La Hoya in 2007.
Even in his prime, I think Mayweather would really struggle with a fast, powerful puncher like Ortiz. He’s really nightmare opponent for Mayweather because Ortiz can do so many things with his advantages. He can jab better than Oscar De La Hoya, fights out of a southpaw stance and can outwork Mayweather if he needs to. Mayweather has never shown the ability to throw a lot of punches, and that’s one of his weaknesses in his game. All Ortiz has to do is step it up to a high level that Mayweather can’t keep up with and he’s got the win. But Ortiz can also move around and beat Mayweather by jabbing from the outside if wants to fight like that.
Comments are closed.