Marcos Maidana KO6 Victor Ortiz
Apparently lost in the shock of seeing
Victor Ortiz crash and burn at the Staples Arena last night were the strange
actions of referee Raul Caiz, Sr.
Whatever his reasoning, if, indeed, reasoning was at all involved, Raul
Caiz, Sr., basically refused to let Ortiz quit against Marcos Maidana. Ortiz came out of his corner to start the sixth round drained of ambition and was promptly hammered to the canvas by Maidana
for a knockdown. Halfway through
the count, Ortiz clearly indicated that he no longer wanted to continue, but
Caiz, Sr., instead of waving the fight off immediately, actually stopped
counting somewhere in the neighborhood of “5 ¾” and called in the ringside
doctor to look at a nasty cut Ortiz had suffered in the previous round. Now, what on earth would have happened
if the doctor had ruled that the cut was manageable and that Ortiz could go
on? Questions in boxing are often
terrifying; answers, when they arise, exponentially so. Luckily for Caiz, Sr., everything
worked out as planned and he was able to perpetuate the fiction that Ortiz was
stopped on cuts. But the harsh
truth–the only kind to be found
in boxing–is that Victor Ortiz quit.
He admitted as much to Max Kellerman after the bout, saying, “I’m not
gonna go out on my back, I’m not going to lay down for nobody, you know. I’d rather just, hey, you know, I’m
gonna stop while I’m ahead and that way I can speak well when I’m older, you
know.”
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Perhaps Caiz, Sr., felt that Ortiz, as the
hometown fighter with serious corporate backing, was entitled to a little
abracadabra. Even so, with this
flabbergasting move, Caiz, Sr., officially enters the Bermuda Triangle of
referees, joining Frank Santore, Jr., (who counted Kermit Cintron out against
Sergio Martinez and then changed his mind) and Marlon Wright (who seemed
determined to play out his own fantasy version of Tunney-Dempsey II during the
Lucian Bute-Librado Andrade fight in Montreal). Unfortunately, Santore, Jr., and Wright were back in the ring
for televised fights only weeks later, and Caiz, Sr., who apparently belongs to
the same powerful union, will soon follow suit.
****
Almost as instantaneously as Ortiz combusted
in the ring, Golden Boy honchos Oscar De La Hoya and Richard Schaefer jumped
into the spin-doctoring booth, pumping out disinformation with all the panache
of Kim Jong-Il. It was the doctor
who stopped the fight, Ortiz was ready to go on, Ortiz was half blind, Ortiz
was ahead on the scorecards, etc.
Never mind the fact that Ortiz was seen by tens of thousands live on HBO
turning away from referee Raul Caiz, Sr., and shaking his head “no.” Caiz, Sr., foreshadowed the Golden Boy
propaganda strategy by pretending that Ortiz was stopped by a cut. To his
credit, only Max Kellerman appeared unwilling to play along with this charade.
****
Even before he was dropped in the sixth
round, Ortiz was thinking about being somewhere else, perhaps home playing
“Fight Night Round 4,” where the competition is a little less fierce. He was unresponsive on the stool after
the fifth and had the look of a man who had just been released from a
whirligig.
****
There is nothing wrong
with losing, especially in a riveting fight, but because one fighter was
overhyped to the point of nausea (and at the expense of his opponent) it is
harder to overcome the stigma of defeat.
If HBO would just pit quality Opponent A against quality Opponent B and
let them go at it without obviously playing favorites, then marketable fighters
will be produced in no time and with less of an advertising budget. And if the fight is as much of a
barnburner as Maidana-Ortiz, then there is the possibility that two marketable
fighters will emerge.
****
For Ortiz, whose name over the last year
could not be mentioned without the word “Superstar” attached to it, the concept
of a rebuilding process is silly–there
is nothing to rebuild. He is a
young fighter with less than 30 pro bouts and whose only significant win was
against fringe contender Mike Arnoutis.
“Rebuild” is most likely a euphemism for “recoup,” as in recouping the
time, effort, and money spent to market a young fighter who was prematurely
anointed the savior of boxing.
Still, Ortiz is an exciting fighter, and he will have an opportunity to
live down his surrender in the future.
****
Interestingly enough, HBO never replayed the
strange count on their telecast.
When Frank Santore, Jr., botched the Sergio Martinez-Kermit Cintron
fight last February, HBO repeated the knockdown as if it were the Zapruder
film. Conspiracy theorists should
take note.
****
Vanes Martirosyan KO6 Andrey Tsurkan
Never has a fighter “bobbed and weaved” into
so many punches as Andrey Tsurkan did last night against Vanes
Martirosyan. He threw himself in
front of jabs, right crosses, left hooks, and uppercuts the way the truly
devoted supposedly hurled themselves before the Juggernaut. Tsurkan, so slow that his bob sometimes
gets ahead of his weave–or is
it vice versa?–is as tough as
they come, but he should seriously think about a new line of work. The back-to-back beatings he took from
Alfredo Angulo and Vanes Martirosyan were grim, to say the least, and Tsurkan,
at 31, will not get any better. He
has now lost three of his last four fights and has the unenviable distinction of practically making Jim Lampley weep during a bout.
****
Juan Manuel Lopez KO9 Olivier Lontchi
Juan Manuel Lopez, who looked a little
sluggish knocking out anonymous Canadian Olivier Lontchi, in Atlantic City, has
developed a strange tic in the ring that almost, but not quite, had me reaching
for my dog-eared copy of the DSM-IV.
For some reason, Lopez kept banging his left hand against the beltline
of his trunks throughout the bout.
In fact, Lopez might have hit himself more often than Lontchi did. Whether or not this new peculiarity
qualifies as a mild form of OCD is open to speculation, but a world-class
opponent will most certainly find a way to exploit it. We will find out the day Lopez enters
the ring with one.
****
Arthur Abraham KO10 Mahir Oral
Readers who spreken zie Deutsch might want to check out the website for the
German Boxing Association (http://www.boxverband.de/) and review some of their
regulations. At one point, there
appeared to be six or seven people, enough for a stud poker game, in the corner
of beleaguered Mirhar Oral between rounds during his drubbing at the hands of
Arthur Abraham. In America, that
would certainly qualify as too many on the field.
****
How is it possible that Abraham has not only
been unable to land a fight with Kelly Pavlik, but he cannot even get any of
the top three middleweights in Germany to swap punches with him? Felix Sturm, a paper champion if
there ever was one, has no interest in getting on the Autobahn to meet Abraham;
Sebastian Sylvester lost a wide decision to Sturm last year; and Sebastian
Zibk, somehow, is scheduled to fight for the WBC “interim” middleweight title
despite the fact that Kelly Pavlik is allegedly the WBC “regular”
champion. If Zibk defeats Italian
Dominico Spada in two weeks, it will mean that Germany will have three
middleweight “world” champions simultaneously. This is not a typo.
****
Finally, IBF middleweight titleholder Arthur Abraham has a unique style in the ring and it is matched by his fashionista trainer Uli Wegner, who appeared to be sporting a tweed newspaper boy cap throughout the fight. Nifty.
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