If you just watched the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz fight like I did, you are also probably stunned right now like I am.
Mayweather won the fight by way of a fourth round knockout, but it was done in a fashion that left many questioning the legitimacy of his win. You see, Ortiz head-butted Mayweather in the round, and the referee, Joe Cortez, broke the fighters up. Well, that’s when things got crazy. Oritz apologized to Mayweather for the head-butt and went in for a hug. While this was happening, Mayweather threw two hard punches at Ortiz’s face. Knockout.
The main question here is, did Cortez signal for the fight to be resumed, or did Mayweather clock Ortiz during a timeout? It didn’t look like Cortez asked for the fight to be resumed, but he awarded Mayweather the knockout. So that’s sure to cause plenty of people to claim the fight was fixed.
And the craziness surrounding this fight continued after it was over. Larry Merchant, who has been an HBO boxing analyst/reporter since 1978, was interviewing Mayweather about the fight. Mayweather told Merchant, “HBO needs to fire you; you don’t know shit about boxing.” And he continued on.
Then, the 80-year-old Merchant replied with probably the greatest quote from a reporter ever: “I wish I was 50 years younger and I would kick your ass.”
Here’s video not taken down by HBO from SportsGrid:
Comments are closed.
About Matt