Joe Cortez Q&A + His thoughts on Mayweather - Ortiz

1stcontact · Nov 16, 2011

Q&A JOE CORTEZ: MAYWEATHER-ORTIZ, INSTANT REPLAY
by Lem Satterfield
Nov 16th, 2011

LAS VEGAS -- RingTV.com caught up to referee Joe Cortez last Friday night at the Mandalay Bay Hotel for this Q&A one day prior to the controversial majority decision victory by RING No. 1 pound-for-pound and eight-division titleholder Manny Pacquiao over RING No. 5-rated pound-for-pound WBO/WBA lightweight beltholder Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand.

It was the 68-year-old Cortez who officiated the first bout of the Pacquiao-Marquez trilogy, which ended in a draw in 2004 and preceded Pacquiao's split-decision win over Marquez in 2008.

Cortez spoke to RingTV.com after having worked a 10-round bout on Friday, his first action since working the controversial fourth-round knockout by RING No. 2-rated pound-for-pound Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KOs) over Victor Ortiz (29-3-2, 22 KOs) on Sept. 17. The loss cost Ortiz his WBC welterweight title.

The end of Mayweather-Ortiz came after Ortiz's repeated attempts to apologize for headbutting Mayweather left him open for a shot by Mayweather.

With Cortez nearby, Ortiz failed to protect himself when Mayweather nailed him first with a jarring left hook and then a powerful, straight right hand that sent Ortiz sprawling to his back. Ortiz rolled over and tried to get up, but did not rise in time to beat Cortez's 10-count.

Cortez shared his thoughts about the Mayweather-Ortiz, as well as his opinion on whether instant replay -- used under certain circumstances in Las Vegas -- should be considered as a universal tool in the sport of boxing.

RingTV.com: Can you share your thoughts on why you did not stop Pacquiao-Marquez I in the first round after Marquez was dropped for the third time?

Joe Cortez: When Marquez went down that third time, Pacquiao threw that last punch, and then, as Marquez was hanging on the ropes, he got hit with another shot.

So I was ready to stop it when he went down the third time, but I saw in his eyes that he was still sharp. That last shot, when Marquez was down, it didn't look like a real hard shot.

It was maybe more hard on the shoulder than on the face. So I just felt like he wasn't fully done 100 percent, and he looked at me with his eyes sharp like, "Are you going to stop it or are you going to let it go?"

And I looked at him and I kept counting. This way, I gave him an opportunity to either stay down or get up. And he got up. He got up, and he showed me that he still had something left.

RingTV.com: Have you thought about what might have happened had you stopped the Pacquiao-Marquez I?

JC: Well, Marquez has the heart of a champion and the heart of a tiger. He'll go down, but he'll get up like a true champion.

Pacquiao? What else can you say about Pacquiao? I've had him on about four different occasions, and that's another guy with the heart of a lion who comes to fight.

I say to myself, "Thank God that I was the referee in their first fight." Because had I been another referee, I don't know if another referee would have let it go after the three knockdowns.

But because I opted to let the fight continue, here we are going into a trilogy. But this is the kind of fight that boxing needs. These are the kinds of fighters boxing needs -- fighters like Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez.

RingTV.com: With tonight being your first time back in action since Mayweather-Ortiz, what are your thoughts about the ending of that fight?

JC: Listen, I did what I had to do. Victor Ortiz, you know, it's a shame that he opted to go with the headbutts and whatnot. He created a bad situation for him, for Floyd Mayweather and for myself.

Because noboby was a winner that night. It was not the kind of ending that the fans wanted to see. I think that Ortiz is a nice young man, and I like him as a person. I've refereed his fights in the past.

But when a fighter gets to a point where he's bewildered and doesn't know what to do and he can't think straight when he starts getting pummeled and starts repeatedly getting hit with hard right hands by Mayweather... that just wasn't the thing to do.

RingTV.com: What was your recollection of how the final sequence played out?

JC: Well, as a fighter, I would not have done that because I was a fighter and I fought 18 or 19 times as a professional and 45 times as an amateur. It's something that most fighters probably wouldn't do.

But Mayweather saw an opportunity to do it because of what had just happened seconds before as a result of being Ortiz headbutted him and whatnot.

I slapped my hands together and I said, "Let's go." The guy [Ortiz] lowered his guard, and, Larry Merchant said it best -- "it was a legal sucker punch."

Ortiz was blocking my view, so I couldn't see the timekeeper, so when I put my hands together and said, "Let's go," I looked -- because I couldn't see the timekeeper.

I thought that maybe there were about 10 seconds to go, and I wanted to make sure that the timekeeper didn't hold the clock on me. So I wanted to make sure that the clock was running because 10 seconds can be crucial.

I looked at the timekeeper, but that really had nothing to do with the result, because Ortiz was going to get clocked anyway. It was legal. Whether I was looking or not looking, Ortiz was going to get clocked anyway.

RingTV.com: How do you mean?

JC: Well, he was hugging him and kissing him. It's not a hugging and a kissing match. He put his guard down and that's what got him into trouble.

It's a shame for boxing, because the fans didn't want to see that, and Ortiz was the sentimental favorite and the fans loved him. I felt so bad for him because it didn't have to end this way.

I had already made the decision that I was going to retire after that fight, the Mayweather-Ortiz fight. But the way that it ended, you know, I couldn't go out like that.

But Ortiz is a young fighter and he made a mistake, and all of us, we make mistakes and we can learn from them. Had I known that this was going to happen, I would have started them back in a different way.

I would have definitely kept them apart, but under the circumstances, I just waved them in like I always do.

RingTV.com: Your thoughts on Ortiz's actions?

JC:Well, my first thought was, "How can Ortiz drop his guard like that?" That's why I tell the boxers to keep their guard up and to protect yourself at all times. Don't drop your guard.

That's why Merchant called it a legal sucker punch, because that's what it was. It was legal, but it's like if I tell you, "hey listen, your shoe is untied," and you look down and I clock you, then it was legal.

Shame on you for looking down.

RingTV.com: Was this your first fight back since then tonight?

JC: Yes, tonight was my first fight back. I pulled out of a couple of fights because my mother died and my father-in-law passed away all in the past couple of weeks. So I pulled out of a couple of fights.

It was my mother first. As a matter of fact, on the night of Mayweather-Ortiz, I got home and found out that my mother had died. Then a week later my father died.

RingTV.com: Did you lose any sleep over the ending?

JC: No, I didn't lose any sleep over it. Absolutely not. I lost sleep when my mother died, but not over that fight. My commission backed me 100 percent.

I took the point, I brought them together, I said time in, and Ortiz lowered his guard, and he got clocked.

RingTV.com: As a referee, would you benefit from relying more on technology such as instant replay?

JC: I think that instant replay is something that is good. I don't want to see a fighter or any athlete for that matter be deprived of a championship or winning a game or whatever because of an error by a human being.

We're human, and I always say that the reason that they put erasers on pencils is that we makes mistakes, let's face it. We can make a mistake.

And I don't think that it's fair that a fighter would lose a title because of something that a referee didn't see. I think that instant replay is something that would be very good for boxing.

RingTV.com: When would instant replay be appropriate?

JC: If a fight has to be stopped at that particular moment, I think that we could say, "you know, before we make the call, why don't we look at it."

Look at football now, if they're not sure, the game is not over. But they could stop right there and say, "Let's look at the instant replay."

You not going to call a replay every time that a foul is committed, but only if a fight has to be stopped, like we have it here in Nevada.

But we have it only if a fight has to be stopped on a cut. Only on a cut if the cut was produced on a foul. These are things that we have to talk about in the future for the betterment of the sport.

We need to see if we can do something if a fight has to be stopped for whatever reason, let's go to the instant replay. I advocate that and I'm not trying to tell the commission what to do.

We have great commissioners. But it's something that should be brought up and be discussed. It should be discussed like we do it with our officials when we have our seminars.

I think we should sit down with the governing bodies because one governing body may disagree with that.
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Source:http://ringtv.craveonline.com/blog/170201-qaa-cortez-mayweather-ortiz-instant-replay

sniffmybadger · Nov 17, 2011

Retire!

harvinmagler · Nov 17, 2011

Senile old ****.

AndrewFFC · Nov 17, 2011

Tough crowd

roe · Nov 18, 2011

Didn't read it all but sounds pretty fair to me.

Edit: Oh and firm too

zabs · Nov 18, 2011

In my eyes he lost all credibility after the Hatton Mayweather fight. Pacquaio who hit Marquez illegally when he was down didn't get any points deducted whilst Hatton who hit the rope rather than back of Mayweather head got a point deducted.

No consistency in his decisions.

Vano-Irons · Nov 18, 2011

roe said: ↑

Didn't read it all but sounds pretty fair to me.

Edit: Oh and firm too
Click to expand...

very good

roe · Nov 18, 2011

zabs said: ↑

In my eyes he lost all credibility after the Hatton Mayweather fight. Pacquaio who hit Marquez illegally when he was down didn't get any points deducted whilst Hatton who hit the rope rather than back of Mayweather head got a point deducted.

No consistency in his decisions.
Click to expand...

:huh

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Joe Cortez Q&A + His thoughts on Mayweather - Ortiz

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Joe Cortez Q&A + His thoughts on Mayweather - Ortiz

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