By Jason Kim: Unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr is facing one of his toughest tests in many years against WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz on September 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Mayweather has gotten used to facing guys that he could beat by pot shotting them from the outside, and landing short quick shots in close. Mayweather’s punch output in his fights since 2007 has been generally low. However, Mayweather is not going to be able to get away with that against Ortiz, because he likes to throw a lot of punches and doesn’t mind getting hit.
Although Ortiz has lost a couple of fights, the guys that beat him were fighters that threw a lot of punches and put pressure on him.
Mayweather is the opposite of a pressure fighter. He doesn’t normally throw a lot of shots and instead prefers to land pinpoint counter punches.
Mayweather is more like Ortiz’s recent victim Andre Berto, only with less power and not as aggressive. Unless Mayweather is willing to mix it up with Ortiz, we could be seeing Mayweather lose for the first time. He’s already coming into the fight with a year’s worth of rust on him from not fighting, and we don’t know how much that has taken away from his game.
Ortiz isn’t the type of fighter you want to be taking on not having fought in a year. Ortiz has been fighting regularly and is young at 24 Mayweather could be in for a big surprise in this fight. Hopefully he’s aware of what he’s getting himself into, because this is one of the toughest opponents that Mayweather to have chosen.
It just makes you wonder whether Mayweather needed money badly or if he’s finally serious about fighting Manny Pacquiao. To be sure, a bout against the southpaw Ortiz is the perfect fight to get Mayweather ready for Pacquiao.
However, few fighters would choose to take on someone as dangerous as Ortiz to get to a big money fight against Pacquiao. But it shows you how confident Mayweather is that he can get by Ortiz with the win. A loss for Mayweather here and he can forget the huge mega million payday against Pacquiao. You got to think that Mayweather’s future paydays might be hurt as well unless he were to fight Ortiz in an immediate rematch and avenge the loss.
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