Joel Diaz has interesting plans for Victor Ortiz

By James Sexton - 02/12/2015 - Comments

Trainer Joel Diaz plans on giving former WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz one more fight before returning him to the top of the sport. Ortiz is one of those guys who has had a tremendous fall from grace in this sport. In 2011 he beat an undefeated Andre Berto in one of the most exciting fights of that year which saw four knockdowns, a point deduction and a narrow decision. He then went on to fight pound for pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr.

In one of Mayweather’s many bizarre fight moments Ortiz was punched and dropped for the count whilst Ortiz had his hands down, believing that the action had been stopped. This was Mayweather’s only knockout since his 2007 victory over Ricky Hatton- which was a 10 round technical knockout. (If you want to go to Mayweather’s last actual straight KO it happened in 1999.)

This loss did not do a lot to damage Ortiz in the reputation department. Whilst he was losing up until the point of stoppage, he wasn’t outclassed entirely and did look to be in the fight to a certain degree. His comeback fight was in 2012 and was against Josesito Lopez, a good fighter but one that Ortiz was expected to beat which would put him back to the top in the welterweight division. Ortiz was upset when he quit on his stool after suffering a broken jaw.

The third knockout loss in a row was against Luis Collazo. Again Collazo was a decent fighter who had been in and around the top of the weight class but was still the underdog despite Ortiz losing two in a row. Collazo blasted Ortiz out in a shock KO in the second round. At this point even those who hadn’t already given up on Ortiz wrote him off. He didn’t appear to have the defense, chin or heart to really be successful at the top levels of the sport and I would bet many didn’t even know he had another fight in 2014 against little known Manuel Perez who took care of early.

Ortiz at 28 is young enough to come again and become champion but there are some serious questions, which need to be asked and answered first. It is apparent with his role in the expendables 3 and now a feature in another film with Jake Gyllenhaal, he can survive from this type of work and not have to box, but apparently Joel Diaz has some plans for him.