By Francisco Hernandez: Last night at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas Victor Ortiz barely escaped a defeat. Ortiz fought Lamont Peterson and the fight ended in a draw. Although Lamont Peterson is a brave fighter he was there to be knocked out by Victor Ortiz. Victor had Lamont hurt but failed to finish him off, instead Ortiz made the mistake of dancing side to side and away from Lamont. Boxing fans were perplexed why Ortiz would dance away from Lamont when Ortiz clearly had Lamont on the brink of a knockout.

Lamont recovered and was able to mount up points and eventually caught Victor with some good shots that staggered Victor who looked like he was about to collapse on wobbly spaghetti legs. If the fight would have been a twelve rounder, Victor Ortiz may have been knocked out or lost the decision.

This writer has often pointed out that Victor Ortiz must find a better team of trainers, the Garcia’s are a decent folk, but they are not good trainers, not a good team. We saw this with Robert Garcia’s fight plan for Margarito in his fight with Pacquiao. Robert changed Margarito’s style, tried to make him a boxer and a jabber, late in his career, when his learning curve was already over many years ago. Margarito would have fared better fighting in his own wild style, even though the end result would probably have been the same. Danny Garcia is not doing much better with Victor Ortiz; Victor looks like a confused kid inside the ring. Ortiz is a fighter with much potential and charisma, but he is at high risk of destroying his career and success in boxing as he faces tougher competition in a state of confusion and lack of direction from his corner and trainer. If Ortiz doesn’t want to fall off a cliff he must seriously start to look for a better trainer and team. I would recommend that Victor Ortiz search out Emanuel Steward. Victor’s boxing qualities would do well with Steward’s style of boxing and training; they would make a good team.

Victor Ortiz could have ended the fight early against Lamont Peterson, but his lack of direction, lack of strategy, put him at risk for another loss. Ortiz cannot go into big fights in a state of indecisiveness and a confused kid. Ortiz has no confidence in his trainer or team, Ortiz needs someone like Emanuel Steward to provide the direction he is lacking. Although last night’s fight was a draw, Victor was the real loser because he let an opportunity go by of scoring a dramatic knockout against a respected fighter like Lamont Peterson.

Bottom line is Victor Ortiz needs to change trainers and find someone as professional as Emanuel Steward, or risk seeing his career and hopes of big pay days flushed down the toilet.

In other fights on the card:

Joan Guzman KO2 Jason Davis
Seth Mitchell KO 5 Taurus Sykes
Sharif Bogere UD 8 Christopher Fernandez
Jesse Vargas UD 8 Ramon Montano
Amir Khan UD 12 Marcos Maidana