Rios: Victor Ortiz still has two or three big paydays ahead of him

By Boxing News - 09/26/2011 - Comments

Image: Rios: Victor Ortiz still has two or three big paydays ahead of himBy Dan Ambrose: Victor Ortiz (29-3-2, 22 KO’s) may have lost his WBC welterweight title and some respect from boxing fans from his 4th round TKO loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s), but WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios believes that Ortiz still has a fairly bright future ahead of him. Rios, who hasn’t been on the best of terms with Ortiz lately, thinks Ortiz has two or three good fights in front of him before he hangs up his gloves.

Speaking with examiner.com, Rios said “There’s still fights out there for him [Ortiz] at 147. Andre Berto just won the IBF [belt], so he could do a rematch on that one. He still has two or three big paydays that he could do.”

I think Rios is really overlooking the youth and talent of Ortiz. At 24, Ortiz won’t even be 30 by the time Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao retire. Ortiz already proved he can beat Berto, and I don’t have any doubts that he’ll beat him again. Other than Berto, there’s really only only Mike Jones, a limited fighter that is very beatable.

Amir Khan is supposed to move up to the welterweight division next year, but I think Khan’s chin is too weak and his frame not sturdy enough to fight the best welterweights in the division.

Ortiz would slice through a guy like Khan without any problems. The fact of the matter is Ortiz will be the guy once Mayweather ages out and is forced to retire. And Pacquiao is getting up there in age as well, and probably only has two years left in his career at best. This means that Ortiz will be one of the major players in the welterweight division for many years to come.

I can see Ortiz getting big fights/paydays against Saul Alvarez, Berto, Miguel Cotto, Khan, Marcos Maidana, Timothy Bradley, Alfredo Angulo and Sergio Martinez. And these are just the fighters who are around today. In another six years, there will be a whole crop of newer fighters moving up and making for good fights for Ortiz.

I think Ortiz has got a bright future. He obviously will learn from the Mayweather fight, and I can’t see him ever letting his guard down like that again. I also don’t see him using his head in the future either. Those two things won’t happen, and had Ortiz not been stopped while he had his guard down in the 4th, he could have made things very messy for Mayweather. I don’t think he would have won but he would have put a hurting on Mayweather and forced him to dig deep to get the win. Conditioning, size, power and youth would have been a factor for Ortiz had the fight gone past the 6th round.



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