By Jim Dower: Light welterweight contender Victor Ortiz (25-2-1, 20 KO’s) will continue with his comeback against the light hitting Hector Alatorre (16-8, 5 KO’s) on February 25th, at the Club Nokia, in Los Angeles, California. It looks like Ortiz’s promotional company, Golden Boy Promotions, isn’t going to take any chances with Ortiz that he might get beaten again by matching him soft this time. Alatorre, 28, has lost eight out of his last ten fights dating back to December 2006.

The only good thing that you can get from these defeats is that Alatorre has yet to be knocked out. That’s good news, Ortiz needs rounds to improve his defense. Last year, Ortiz was stopped in the 6th round by Argentinean knockout artist Marcos Maidana (27-1, 26 KO’s) in June. Ortiz came out slugging against Maidana and quickly knocked him down three times in the first two rounds.

However, Maidana dropped Ortiz in the first with hard right hand and then hurt him at the end of the 5th with a big right to the head. In the 6th round, Maidana finished off a still hurt Ortiz with another hard right, knocking him down. The fight was then stopped at 0:46 of the 6th. There are boxing experts who say that Ortiz made a mistake of slugging with a slugger, and that he could have beaten Maidana if he had only chosen to box more. Maybe, but Maidana was putting a great deal of pressure on Ortiz from the earliest moments in the fight and not giving him any room to maneuver.

Even if Ortiz did want to try and stay away Maidana, there’s a high probability that Maidana would have caught up to Ortiz anyway and ended up taking him out. He just didn’t seem to have the chin to take the hard shots that Maidana was blasting him with in that fight. Ortiz rebounded well from that loss and defeated Antonio Diaz by a 6th round retirement in December.

Ortiz landed some nice shots in that fight showing excellent power in knocking Diaz to the canvas in the 3rd. However, Ortiz still was easy to hit as Diaz landed some big shots of his own in that fight. Clearly, Ortiz has some serious work to do on his defense if he wants to capture a title in the future.

While I think Ortiz is good enough to beat World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan and IBF champion Juan Urango, I think Ortiz would have big troubles against WBO title holder Timothy Bradley, WBC champion Devon Alexander and, of course, Maidana. I also think Ortiz would have troubles against Kendall Holt and the hard punching Ricardo Torres.

Those would all be tough fights for Ortiz and it would be asking a lot for him to come out of those fights with wins. At 22, I think Ortiz won’t be put in with any of those fighters any time soon. I think his management team have learned their lesson and will play it safe for awhile before deciding to put him with tougher fighters.

Alatorre should be way out of his class in this fight, but he will be a good test to show whether or not Ortiz is improving defensively. He doesn’t have any power but he’s capable of throwing shots that Ortiz will be forced to defend against. Hopefully, Ortiz doesn’t come out looking for a quick knockout again and get tapped on the chin and put down. Ortiz’s chin is clearly his weak spot.