September 16th weekend, critical time to celebrate the independence of many Latin American countries, is utilized by the boxing world to promote the bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Victor ‘Vicious’ Ortiz. Although many will talk about the dominance of Mayweather and his perfect record that stands at 42-0, I have decided to talk about Golden Boy Promotions and the decisions they have made in moving Ortiz in the boxing world. At age 22, Ortiz entered the ring young and inexperienced; a boy against a dangerous Marcos R. Maidana who could not miss with his right hand punches as he broke down and destroyed a young Ortiz. One would think that the mistake would not be made again in setting up Ortiz to fight against boxers who he was clearly not yet ready for. Yet, the mistake was repeated this past weekend. It is unfortunate that GoldenBoy Promotions exposed Ortiz too early to fight against men, when clearly, he is still a young boy who lacks the experience and insight to keep his guard up after he overly apologized for head-butting Mayweather. Yes, Ortiz was wrong for head-butting, but more wrong are those who promoted him and set him up for disaster too early into his young career. This places Ortiz in rebuilding mode; to rebuild his confidence and his reputation to the world that he is a top contender. Youth is on his side and he has time to work his way back up, but first he will need to gain more experience in order to keep his cool in the ring and not lose his composure.

Lastly, I wonder how many more fights the boxing commission will allow Joe Cortez to officiate. After the fight, UFC’s Dana White was critical about Cortez stating that he “destroyed that fight.” As the third man in the ring, it is your job to keep control of the fight and be fair and firm, both of which Cortez yet again failed to do. One example that comes to mind is the madness that occurred during the Zab Judah/Mayweather bout, where Zab hit Mayweather with a low blow and both corners cleared into the ring. During this craziness, Richard Steele, in my opinion still maintained control of the fighters and was able to cool things down and regain order inside the ring as both fighters went on to go the distance. What I am getting at is that Joe Cortez had the opportunity to stop Ortiz’s head-butts with early warnings to keep control of the fight and even after the head-butt where he subtracted a point from Ortiz, could have facilitated the touching of gloves and restarted the bout on his count. Instead, Cortez took his eyes of the fighters and fans are left with the “what if?” What if the fight had continued for a couple more rounds? What if Mayweather was rattled by the last flurry Ortiz had on him? What if Joe Cortez calls the Mayweather/PacMan fight? Well, that last questions demands a separate blog, not to mention a PacMan win over Juan M Marquez.