Borges To Ortiz: Be Quiet, Accept Loss, Do Your Job

Sometimes you just need to be quiet and go do your job. These are lessons lost on Victor Ortiz.

Monday the dethroned WBC welterweight champion held an international conference call that proved one thing: Floyd Mayweather hurt him a lot worse than it appeared when he knocked him half senseless in the fourth round two weeks ago.

Clearly the victim of memory loss and post-concussion syndrome, Ortiz declared, “He wasn’t fazing me and he wasn’t weakening me. I had the upper hand in that fight and he was fearing the fact that I was coming (on). My comments are pretty much supported by any boxing supporters.’’

Well, for starters they weren’t supported by the three ringside judges, who gave eight of the nine rounds they collectively scored between them to Mayweather (one guy gave Ortiz the second). If Mayweather was “fearing‘’ any fact it was that his sometimes problem right hand might finally give in from all the shots he was landing square in the middle of Ortiz’s face.

As you all know by now, Ortiz intentionally head butted Mayweather in egregious fashion out of frustration from his utter inability to hit him with his fists barely 40 seconds after having been warned about illegally using his head. Referee Joe Cortez stopped the bout to deduct a point, a break during which Ortiz apologized three times to Mayweather, including kissing him on his cheek.

When Cortez finally said “Let’s go!’’ and clapped his hands together between them to resume the fight, Ortiz bizarrely again tried to apologize. This time Mayweather leaned in to touch the side of his arms and then rocked back and nailed him with a booming left followed by a nasty straight right as Ortiz looked with eyes pleading for help from Cortez, who provided none.

Ortiz tumbled to the floor, his eyes now vacant and the sound of slot machine bells ringing in his head as Cortez counted. He tried to get up once but stumbled over onto his side and thus ended his short reign as a WBC champion.

Immediately after the fight he again apologized for his actions but claimed he’d followed Cortez’s instructions “absolutely.’’ Well, not when Cortez said “Let’s go’’ he didn’t. Unless, of course, he wanted to go…home, which he soon did.

In a desperate attempt at doing the impossible – which is shaming Mayweather into giving him a rematch he doesn’t deserve – Ortiz and two guys who should have known better, his promoter Oscar De La Hoya and his manager Rolando Arrellano, made themselves look small, pathetic and, frankly, ridiculous claiming a butt in which Ortiz launched himself into Mayweather’s face was because, “He released the elbow on me. I released the head butt. I was very disrespected by Floyd. Yeah, I head-butted, but I was deducted, and apologized. They got me to the point where I was super apologetic, and I kissed Mayweather, and said sorry.”

Who is “they?’’ And what was he apologizing for if it was Mayweather who instigated his actions?

Frankly, it sounded like the ravings of a lunatic or the babbling of someone who hadn’t yet fully woken up from that knockout combination Mayweather nailed him with.

At one point a guy who was last seen flat on his face eating canvas was claiming over the telephone that Mayweather’s punches were “like getting slapped by a girl. His punches were not fazing me, weren’t weakening me…The (left) hook didn’t hurt me… Even the next punch didn’t do damage.”

If they didn’t what was he doing on the floor? Either he was hurting or he was quitting. Which was it, Victor?

As I said earlier, sometimes I guy needs to just be quiet, accept what happened and move on with his job. Go out and fight a rematch with Andre Berto. Beat him again and win another form of the welterweight title. Then challenge someone like young Amir Khan. Whip him too.

By that time, Ortiz wouldn’t need to be calling the media begging for a rematch with Mayweather. The world would be calling for one, which is how it used to be done back in the days when boxing was a reasonably understandable business.

“If Mayweather has any honor, he’ll say he wants the rematch,” De La Hoya said. “Not even (Ricardo) Mayorga would have done that… We were cheated, and Victor was cheated, out of a good fight.

“Take a look at the fight carefully.  Look at all of the elbows thrown.  Victor was coming on. Mayweather wasn’t going to knock him out. A fighter as young as Victor takes time to come on strong. He was coming on strong.’’
Sure he was. He also wasn’t hurt by any of those punches that knocked him on his back. He was unfazed by Mayweather’s lead right hands, including the one that buckled him in the third round. He was seduced into fouling Mayweather and then forced to apologize to him four times by the mysterious force known as “they.’’

What else did Floyd Mayweather do to him? Steal his lunch money?