Ring Posts III

Money Shot

Welcome to the third installment of my monthly boxing column, Ring Posts! The Big Money Mayweather fight is history, and as far as my prediction, Norris vs Leonard is certainly wasn't!

This month's column will be devoted exclusively to my thoughts on what came to known as Mayweather KO4 Ortiz: Protect Yourself At All Times!     

After the fight was over, many people were calling what Floyd Mayweather did a cheap shot. It wasn't. There was nothing cheap about it, in fact it was pure Money! It would have been a cheap shot if Mayweather had punched Victor when Ortiz was approaching him in the corner to kiss and hug him immediately after the headbutt. That would have been a cheap shot! All Floyd did was mitigate the risk to himself against an unpredictable opponent who was melting down mentally and needed to be stopped before he injured himself or others.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. did the right thing by knocking out Victor Ortiz like he did, and he did exactly what needed to be done to protect HIMSELF at all times! While Ortiz wasn't, Mayweather was!

Victor Ortiz should have very well known that Floyd Mayweather is not to be trifled with, kissed, or excessively apologized to for anything in the ring. Mayweather did the same thing to Arturo Gatti, and then again to Sugar Shane Mosley, though neither of those two were dumb enough to kiss Floyd Mayweather! Ortiz was either a fool for letting that happen, or he was fooled into letting it happen. Either way, Ortiz should have known better and if he didn't then he definitely got what was coming to him after landing his best combination of a the night, a flying headbutt followed by a kiss to the cheek!

Boxing Rule #1: No kissing. Ever. Really!

Also in Mayweather's defense, something really needed to be done about all the recent buddy-buddy stuff in the ring, all the excessive apologizing and glove tapping. The answer is a good swift punch in the face, so kudos to Mayweather for that. In the ring, it's a fight not a night out with friends. If only Manny Pacquiao had slipped one of Shane Mosley's 42 friendly glove taps and punched him in the face! Imagine the possibilities, a fight might have broken out!

Fouls are part of boxing and fighters commit them for a reason, usually to get an advantage of some kind. But if you're gonna do it dirty, do it well, and stand behind it! Instead of apologizing for it, a dirty fighter should crack the crooked smile of a man who wants his opponent to think he just might do it again. Victor Ortiz really screwed up the biggest night of his young career but after the fact he showed far more class than Floyd Mayweather, who followed up his big win with a disgraceful tirade against the 80 year old Larry Merchant. And for anyone who says that Larry Merchant is biased or unfair and had THAT coming to him from Floyd, I'll remind you of the fact that when Marvin Hagler was upset with Larry Merchant in the 80's for not giving him the perceived proper credit, The Marvelous One never cursed or verbally assaulted him. Hagler simply went into the ring and did what it took to earn the man's respect. Period.

Hagler earns RESPECT!

 And for the young and/or forgetful fans who thought there had never been anything in boxing history quite like what happened between Mayweather and Ortiz, I give you Donald Curry vs Tony Montgomery from 1987. The lunging headbutts from Montgomery were just as flagrant as Ortiz's, if not more so and the fight even ends with a heck of a "sucker punch" too, from Curry, who was normally a pretty mellow guy in the ring! Being intentionally headbutted can bring out the animal in even the most sportsmanlike of fighters and if you follow the sport of boxing long enough, there's an historical precedence for just about anything that could possibly happen in a ring. 



Bottom line: Victor Ortiz called himself Vicious but in the end it was Floyd Mayweather who proved to be truly vicious in the ring when it mattered most. It was as if the two fighters should have switched nicknames going into the fight because on fight night Mayweather was Vicious and Victor Ortiz fought and acted like he was really just there for the Money!

See ya next month!