By Dan Ambrose: WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz (29-2-2, 22 KO’s) doesn’t have any objections to the “Firm but fair” referee Joe Cortez working his fight this Saturday against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (41-0, 25 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Let’s hope for Ortiz’s sake that he doesn’t live to regret it, because Ortiz showed a new ability to fight on the inside in his last fight against Andre Berto last April. Cortez may be a great referee but like a lot of referees, he has certain things that he does that slows the action down at times. In two notable fights – Mayweather vs. Ricky Hatton in 2007 and Amir Khan vs. Marcos Maidana in December 2010 – Cortez did a lot of stepping in and breaking up of the inside work by Hatton and Maidana in those two fights.
It seemed as if Cortez was too quick to break apart the fighters when the better inside guys – Maidana and Hatton – were still trying to working. It may be that Cortez saw something that I didn’t, but the interrupting of the action didn’t seem to help Hatton or Maidana.
In the Khan-Maidana fight, Khan was getting really demolished by Maidana on the inside and Cortez stepped in broke up the action during periods where Khan was getting hit hard by shots. All Khan could do at the time was hold with one arm or hold around the neck, and Maidana was teeing off. Those breaks in the action seemed to favor Khan because he was allowed to get separation from Maidana and room to move. The same for the Mayweather-Hatton fight. Mayweather was getting hit by Hatton in close, and breaks by Cortez seemed to help Mayweather more than Hatton.
Ortiz may not have any objections about Cortez working the fight right now, but hopefully he doesn’t feel upset about his decision not to say anything after the fight is over. Once he’s been beat, it will just seem like excuse making on Ortiz’s part, which is why he needs to speak up now beforehand rather than when it’s too late.
Cortez is a referee that wants to keep the action running smoothly and he no doubt doesn’t want it to come to a grinding halt when the two fighters get in close. However, when one guy is still working on the inside then he needs to permit that fighter to continue to do his work on the inside instead of stopping the action and creating separation.
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