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Another One Bites the Dust

 

It has been a month of surprises for the sport of boxing. Weeks after Manny Pacquiao was cheated out of his 16th straight win after clearly outperforming Timothy Bradley, huge betting favorite Victor Ortiz was unable to answer the bell for the 10th Round. 

After coming into the fight looking bigger, faster and stronger, I personally had a lot of confidence that  "Vicious" Victor Ortiz would have no problem handling the largely unknown Josesito Lopez. Although both fighters were coming off of disappointing losses, Ortiz was facing the best fighter in the world in Floyd Mayweather, while Lopez was facing Jessie Vargas.

Nevertheless, time and time again we are reminded that the most important trait any fighter must possess is heart. If you were picking the winner of this fight based on who had the most talent, Ortiz would win in a landslide. But if you were picking the winner of this fight based on heart alone, you would have had to go with Lopez. In this fight, like many others, heart won.
Although Ortiz was gutting out tough rounds that were extremely hard to judge, you could tell that Ortiz was slowly giving up. When Ortiz is fighting someone who doesn’t have the guts to fight back, he breaks down his opponents and picks them apart. However when he endures any type of adversity, he quickly folds. As soon as I heard the crowd cheer for Lopez I became very nervous for Ortiz. It seems like yesterday that Ortiz informed the referee that he wanted to stop the fight after getting knocked down by Marcos Maidana. The most shocking part of that story is that Ortiz had already knocked down Maidana three times. 

All Ortiz had to do Saturday to get his huge payday opportunity against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez , was to win a convincing decision against a fighter who was clearly not on his level. Josesito Lopez had other plans, as he proved yet again that if you can whether the storm against Ortiz, you have a great shot to win. After taking as much punishment as he was giving, Ortiz took a shot that broke his jaw, which resulted in him not being able to close his mouth. At the time, Ortiz was winning close decisions on all three of the judges scorecards. Yet again Ortiz showed that he doesn’t have the heart of a champion. After a very visible argument with his corner men, Ortiz stood up and was able to break free of his trainer to inform the referee that he wanted to stop the fight. 

Although Ortiz is still a young fighter who is a big part of boxing’s future, he has taken a huge step back and damaged his reputation once again. While Ortiz will never have the heart or talent of Muhammad Ali, who once fought an entire fight with a broken jaw, he has shown through his actions that he is a quitter.

At least boxing has parody...

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Have A Great Day,
Aaron Granoff