By Jason Kim: Former WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz (29-3-2, 22 KO’s) feels he’ll be the underdog in his rematch with former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (28-1, 22 KO’s) next month on February 11th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, despite having already beaten Berto a year ago last April by a 12 round decision.

It’s true that Ortiz is the slight underdog in the Berto-Ortiz II rematch, but Ortiz has himself to thank for that with his mental meltdown in his last fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last September when Ortiz fell apart in the 4th round and head-butted Mayweather.

Ortiz was much too apologetic to Mayweather after the action was stopped by referee Joe Cortez and he was docked a point for the headbutt foul. When the action resumed, Ortiz tried to slip in one more apology after having already apologized during the time out, and Mayweather took advantage of Ortiz dropping his guard and slammed home a two-punch combination that put Ortiz down for the count.

Speaking with examiner.com writer Chris Robinson, Ortiz said “I’ve learned that I’ve been counted out for too long by everyone. Once again, I’m an underdog one again. I don’t mind it one bit. It’s the story of my life.”

No, Ortiz is an underdog because he’s not long stable in fights against Mayweather and Marcos Maidana. Some boxing fans see him as quitter and felt he took the easy way out of his fight against Mayweather when things started to unravel for him in the 4th round with him taking punishment from Mayweather.

In his fight against Maidana in 2009, Ortiz appeared to quit in the 6th round after being dropped by Maidana. Afterwards, Ortiz made some weird statement where he said he felt he didn’t deserve to take that kind of punishment. It sounded like Ortiz really wasn’t committed to boxing at the time. Ortiz did fight well in his next four fights after the Maidana fight, beating Hector Alatorre, Vivian Harris, Nate Campbell and Antonio Diaz.

However, Ortiz seemed to come apart in his fight against Lamont Peterson in December 2010. Ortiz dropped Peterson twice in the 3rd round but then backed off and boxed him for the remainder of the fight when presented with pressure. The fight ended in a 10 round draw and it should have been easy win for Ortiz, because each time he went at Peterson hard, he dominated him with his power and size. But Ortiz just didn’t seem willing to commit himself to fighting Peterson in the style he needed to fight in for him to win.