By Eric Thomas: The September 17th title fight between WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz (29-2-2, 22 KO’s) and unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (41-0, 25 KO’s) will be taking place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to Dan Rafael on his twitter page. It’s not really surprising that the fight will be taking place in Vegas rather than New York or Texas, as Mayweather Jr. lives in Las Vegas and prefers to fight there so as not to have to travel.
Rafael says that tickets for the Mayweather-Ortiz fight will go on sale after the 4th of July. Mayweather hasn’t fought in over a year and he’ll be taking on a really tough opponent in the 24-year-old Ortiz, who has excellent power, good hand speed and fights out of the southpaw stance. Ortiz defeated World Boxing Council welterweight champion Andre Berto in his last fight by a 12 round decision in April.
Ortiz was able to nullify Berto’s speed advantage by staying close to him and outworking him on the inside and hurting him with powerful lefts. Although Ortiz hit the canvas himself twice in the fight, he was able to get up both times and hurt Berto.
It’s thought by some that the Ortiz-Mayweather fight is a tune-up fight for Mayweather to get ready for the southpaw WBC welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao later on in 2012. That makes sense because Ortiz is probably the best possible opponent you could think of to get Mayweather ready for a big puncher like Pacquiao. Ortiz hits harder than Pacquiao but doesn’t have his same quickness.
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