In the wake of Manny Pacquiao’s predictable victory over Shane Mosley, I spent some time this morning reviewing some fight records on Boxrec.com. I was in for quite a shock, because that august repository for the individual records of professional boxing shows the newly minted WBC Welterweight Champion Victor Ortiz is scheduled to fight Floyd Mayweather, Jr. on September 17 at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Although there has been no official announcement yet, rumors had already been swirling around a Mayweather vs. Ortiz clash, and coupled with the listing of the bout by Boxrec, I believe the official announcement is only a matter of time. Ironically, Mayweather’s last fight was his May 2010 domination of none other than Shane Mosley. Before that, Mayweather dominated Juan Manuel Marquez, who in turn is set to fight Pacquiao later this year. [Editor’s note: Pacquiao was already slotted to face Juan Manuel Marquez in October, taking him off the market for any date with Mayweather until the beginning of 2012 at the earliest]. Beset by legal troubles, “Pretty Boy” hasn’t fought in just over a year now, so on the surface picking Ortiz (who is fresh off his upset win over Andre Berto) is a resounding statement of his confidence. In reality, making this fight only continues Mayweather’s ducking and dodging of the man who has now firmly supplanted him as boxing’s P4P king, Manny Pacquiao.
Ortiz vs. Mayweather is is the sort of match-up boxing fans should salivate over. “Vicious” Victor is a pressure fighter in the mold of Mayweather’s unofficial conqueror, Jose Luis Castillo. He throws punches in bunches, comes forward with dangerous intent, and is bigger, stronger, faster and hits harder than Castillo and younger than Mayweather. The win over Berto have put paid to any gossip regarding Ortiz’s heart to boot. On paper, this bout should be the toughest fight Mayweather has seen in years. Yet, none of that matters for the simple reason that the fight every sports fan in the world wants to see is Pacquiao vs. Mayweather. Fighting Ortiz just prolongs Mayweather’s avoidance of his obvious destiny to meet Pacquiao, and much to the detriment of his legacy. The welterweight universe orbits around Planet Pacman, and the more Mayweather tries to resume the center stage without traveling there, the more irrelevant he makes himself. Mayweather’s shameful antics and delaying tactics are half Greek tragedy, half Greek farce.
Even worse for Mayweather is that an Ortiz fight carries with it a hint of ducking Andre Berto. Mayweather and Ortiz are both promoted by Golden Boy Productions, which explains quite a bit about how this fight came about. However, Andre Berto was not part of the stable of arch-rival promoter Top Rank, which is where Manny Pacquiao hangs his hat. Barring his court appearances, Mayweather could have had a fight with Berto pretty much any time he wanted to in the last two years. HBO certainly would have paid a pretty penny for it, and yet Mayweather for some reason never expressed even the slightest bit of interest in taking on the fast, slick Haitian-American. However, now that the green WBC belt is in the hands of slugger Victor Ortiz, Mayweather is all about fighting for the championship. Clearly, Mayweather likes playing matador to the bull than trying to out-speed and out-box another fast boxer.
