By Hector Gonzalez: During the past week fight fans have been fixated on the notion that Victor Ortiz is a quitter and has no heart. Some fight fans have even called Victor Ortiz a coward for choosing to quit after a broken jaw during the 9th round versus Josesito Lopez this past weekend.

The outcome of the fight poses an important question for the sport, ‘what does it mean to have a heart in boxing?’

I personally do not agree with fans that claim that ‘Ortiz’ does not have a heart. I understand why people would make the claim but he technically did quit against Maidana and Lopez, but I also believe that these fans are not looking at the bigger picture which is that Ortiz gives great fights. The first thing that these fans have to ask themselves is, “is Victor Ortiz good or bad for the sport of boxing and does boxing need him?” My response to that is that YES Ortiz is good for boxing, and YES boxing needs him and here is why.

Whether boxing fans like to admit it or not, there are very few fighters that are exciting to watch in the welter weight division. Out of the many prospects in boxing I could honestly say that Ortiz is one of a few that I actually find interesting, mostly because he doesn’t stop coming forward even when he is getting hit, never holds, never runs, punches extremely hard, making for exciting fights. These are the type of fights that most fighters never engage in because in order to engage in those types of fights you would need ‘heart’.

In comparison to other contemporary fighters Ortiz is one of the most exciting fighters- here are some example; Amir Khan clinches a lot and literally runs when he feels pressure, I honestly feel frustrated watching Amir Khan hold so much and run so much. Bradley vs Alexander was an extremely boring fight mostly because neither fighter was willing to take risks. Alexander vs Maidana was also a terrible fight mostly because Alexander kept on holding. I’ve never even seen an exciting Mayweather fight, Brandon Rios is just plain boring and so is Paul Malignaggi. The listed qualities I believe are of fighters who do what they need to do in order to win, but not necessarily take risks.

The fighters that I enjoy watching at the 140- 147 division are Manny Pacquiao, Robert ‘The Ghost’ Guerrero (whose moving up to 147), and Victor Ortiz mostly because their fights I believe are action packed. I might also include Maidana but I believe he is too unskilled to fully appreciate, and I also believe that Matthysse and Josesito Lopez deserve more exposure.

In conclusion, Ortiz did give up against Maidana. Ortiz also dropped Maidana 3 times, Ortiz demonstrated that he could infact convincingly beat Maidana if he could get himself to back off and stop engaging. Amir Khan won against Maidana, Amir held Maidana for a substantial part of the fight, ran for most of the fight, did just enough to win on points but never fully engaged or took risks….. So the question is “who really has heart?”

It is claimed that Muhammad Ali fought against Ken Norton with a broken jaw after the second round. Some analyst believe that to be unrealistic and that Ali might have fought with a broken jaw after then 11th or 12th round…. Either way, with all do respect to one of the greatest fighters of all time, Muhammad Ali has lived with Parkinson’s syndrome since 1984 due to severe head trauma.