By Ted Sares:
The Hype:
An extremely hungry and vicious “Vicious’ Victor Ortiz (29-2-2) is young, explosive and heavy handed. He has improved with each outing and has made fans forget about the Maidana debacle. As in the Berto brawl, he will perpetrate his unique brand of shock and awe on Floyd Mayweather Jr. early and if Little Floyd (41-0) is rusty, Victor will hurt him and then exploit Floyd’s suddenly faded reflexes caused in part by 1) lack of ring activity and 2) by external legal issues. It’s within the realm of possibility that Floyd grows old overnight in the manner of Kostya Tszyu and Darius Dariusz Michalczewski. It can happen.
The reality
Arguably, Floyd is the best or second best P4P fighter in the world. Ortiz does not belong anywhere near the top ten. Floyd IS the guy who schooled Juan Manuel Marquez over 12 dominant rounds. Ortiz IS the guy who drew with Lamont Peterson just two fights ago.
Floyd is not is not Andre Berto whose style provided Ortiz with the perfect partner with whom to display his highly combustible style of fighting. That kind of fight is not Floyd’s and he is to savvy to be lured into something he doesn’t like.
Thus, like assessing a mutual fund, one needs to look at past performance to judge the future. In this regard, Mayweather always shows up with his cylinders finely tuned and there is no reason to believe that won’t be the case on September 17. He also always shows up with his full arsenal of superb skills the likes of which Vicious Victor can only dream about.
The Outcome
While Ortiz clearly has power and can be extremely dangerous early, especially if Floyd should evidence ring rust, I don’t see that as likely. It will take more than Victor Ortiz to break Floyd’s undefeated mark.
My expectation is that after an explosive start, Ortiz will be contained within the tight cocoon of Floyd Mayweather Junior’s well-designed fight plan. Little Floyd will neutralize the explosive Ortiz after round 4 and then begin to find his rhythm in the mid rounds. Mayweather should finish the fight in cruise control using sharp counters, punishing and unanswered leads to Victor’s face (ala the Ricky Hatton fight), and an impenetrable defense unlike any Victor has seen.
I predict a dominant unanimous decision for Mayweather as he moves to 42-0.