Welterweight Carson Jones’ take on Victor Ortiz

I caught up with welterweight Carson Jones (34-8-2, 24 KOs) this week ahead of his upcoming fight against Kell Brook (27-0-0, 18 KOs) scheduled for July 7, 2012 in Yorkshire, England. Jones, who has won eight straight by knockout since moving down from junior middleweight to welter in 2010, is no stranger to adversity.

I’m always interested in hearing a fighter’s perspective on hot button topics in boxing. After all, while most of us just get to watch these guys punch each other for our entertainment purposes, the fighters themselves actually know what the heck they’re talking about.

Ortiz’s decision to stop the fight in the ninth round of his bout against Josesito Lopez last Saturday night has drawn all sorts of ire from the boxing community. Our own Ron Borges wondered if Ortiz should be called “Tap Out” rather than “Vicious Victor”. Boxing fans on twitter and message boards have called Ortiz everything from a lousy quitter to a straight up bum. TSS editor Michael Woods ventured to get Pauli Malignaggi’s take on this situation for his ESPNNewYork.com Fight Blog, and even fellow fighter Malignaggi said that basically Victor made his own bed to lie in back in 2009 when he asked the referee to stop his contest against Marcos Maidana.

For what it’s worth, my take is simply this: it’s all well and good to say what someone should’ve done or what one would do in a circumstance, and entirely different to actually be in that position to do it.

Ortiz wasn’t hurt in the fight against Lopez; he was injured. A broken jaw is absolutely no joke, and the worst part of the situation, at least to me, was that his corner (led by Danny Garcia) didn’t seem interested or aware that their fighter needed any protecting. Instead, they made Victor stand up and say the fight needed to be stopped. It should have never come to that.

Jones shared similar sentiments.

“I think everybody from the outside looking in can always say that they would’ve done this or that, but you don’t know what you would have done because you weren’t the one in there with your jaw broke.

“I can’t say what I would’ve done because I’ve never been in that situation. I may disagree with him quitting against Maidana, but I can’t blame him for doing it that night [against Lopez]. I mean, he was talking like he had two golf balls in his mouth! And he was spitting all that blood out…

“He’s still got a future ahead of him, you know? Why keep going and get something messed up even worse than it already is?”

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