By Dan Ambrose: In an interview at Ringtv, former WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz confessed to the real reason he head-butted Floyd Mayweather Jr. in their fight last September. Ortiz was knocked out in the 4th round shortly after losing a point for head-butting Mayweather. For some reason Ortiz felt necessary to continue to apologize to Mayweather after losing the point.

He apologized on two separate occasions and in the middle of the second apology, Ortiz was cold-cocked by Mayweather with a left-right combination that put Ortiz on the canvas where the fight was immediately stopped by referee Joe Cortez.

Ortiz said “I was trying to break his [Mayweather] nose, 100 percent, because he nailed me 16 times with his elbow on my right eye, which made me close my eye.”

It’s too bad it took Ortiz this long to finally admit why he fouled Mayweather because he’s been slow in explaining himself all this time. But this confession might make it difficult for Ortiz to get another fight against Mayweather, because he might be hesitant to fight a guy that could try and break his nose if he accidently hits him with an elbow. In watching the Mayweather-Ortiz fight it didn’t look as if Mayweather was trying to land elbows and I only saw one actual elbow that landed shortly before Ortiz head-butted Mayweather in the 4th.

Ortiz blew his chance against Mayweather by opting to fight dirty instead of dealing with the elbows or having his corner alert referee Joe Cortez in between rounds to get Mayweather to stop.

Ortiz will be back in the ring for the first time since the Mayweather loss in February when he takes on Andre Berto in a rematch on February 11th. There won’t be a title on the line, as Berto recently vacated his International Boxing Federation title and Ortiz lost his WBC belt to Mayweather. The fight will still be interesting to watch because of how exciting their previous fight was last April.