Mayweather Will Attempt To Sell Ortiz Mismatch

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is in the sales business and his product is himself, and frankly, no one sells it better. He’s made a career of promoting overhyped mismatches of himself against limited opponents touted to be the next best thing in Boxing.

In 2005, Mayweather sold the angle that Arturo Gatti, who had absolutely no Boxing skills whatsoever, would be able to use his rough housing style to beat up and bully Mayweather into submission. We all know full well that Gatti’s style played perfectly into Mayweather’s favor but some of us still chose to believe otherwise.
Fast forward to 2 years later, in 2007 he sold us the same exact thing against Ricky Hatton, but this time he made the smaller Hatton jump up one weight class where he wasn’t nearly as effective. Well we all know what happened there. Mayweather exposed Hatton to be the club fighter that he is and picked him apart en route to a knockout in the later rounds.
In 2006, Mayweather’s first foray against a legitimate Welterweight in Carlos Baldomir was being showcased as the best available opponent for Mayweather at the time. Yes, ahead of both Miguel Cotto who was then just moving up to Welterweight as well and Antonio Margarito, pre-disgrace.
Baldomir was a large Welterweight with limited abilites and Mayweather made easy work of him.
Right after that, Mayweather was scheduled to fight the very erratic Zab Judah. Judah had always been highly regarded as a very crafty southpaw with great solid skills, enough to actually be a threat to Mayweather. However, it was also known to be that Judah was highly unpredictable in and out of the ring – distractions that often get the better of him and affect his performances. Nevertheless, Mayweather sold to the general public a personal grudge he had with Judah, which resulted in a very heated rivalry and in turn translated into one of the craziest in ring scuffles between boxers and trainers in the history of the sport (Judah even took a swing at Floyd’s uncle and trainer Roger Mayweather). After the brief incident, the fight continued and Mayweather seized control of the bout to cruise to a Unanimous Decision over 12 rounds.
In his recent fights against Mexicans, Mayweather took an overweight and bloated Oscar Dela Hoya into the Super Welterweight division where he had an obvious speed advantage. He took Dela Hoya apart with pinpoint accuracy. Much to the surprise of many, Dela Hoya still had much left in the tank and his constant aggression offset much of his speed disadvantage. Mayweather escaped with a split decision win.
The other was the Juan Manuel Marquez fight and to this date, is the biggest sham in my opinion. Mayweather who is technically much better than Marquez took the Mexican 2 weight divisions higher out of his comfort zone and absurdly disregarded the catchweight of 144 lbs. The end result was Mayweather entering the bout with an undisclosed weight advantage over the smaller and slower Marquez – a weight disparity that he refused to reveal. Some believe the difference was around 20 lbs.
Mayweather completely dominated Marquez.
This fall, September 17th, Mayweather is scheduled to face rising star Victor Ortiz from Oxnard, California. While there are still some out there who believe this will be a competitive matchup, most boxing analysts and casual observers are already wary of Mayweather’s previous history of “cherry-picking” his opponents. Not many outside of a few Ortiz hopefuls think Mayweather is in for a tough one.
Now Victor Ortiz isn’t a bad fighter by any means, the fact is that he’s too young and raw for a fighter such as Mayweather’s caliber at this stage in his career. He’s simply not ready for a fight of this magnitude. Au contrare, Ortiz actually has the type of style to beat Mayweather, he’s got a good combination of speed and power and plus he’s a lefty (Mayweather has historically had difficulties with southpaws, also confirmed by Roger Mayweather himself). But it’s far too early for Ortiz to be stepping in the ring with “Money May”.
Nonetheless, this fight will happen whether we like it or not. The only consolation we can take away from this is the fact that Mayweather is indeed fighting again, whether to prep for an eventual Pacquiao showdown or to pay the bills. It doesn’t matter. Mayweather fighting again means more drama, more business and more fans watching Boxing.
Never mind that it’s a complete and utter mismatch. Victor Ortiz will provide a couple of scares for Mayweather anyways, which is always great to watch. Expect to see however Mayweather’s awesome defensive prowess on full display – a technical showcase of masterful boxing.
Also expect for Mayweather to win this one by Unanimous Decision as he has done so for his past few fights despite facing overmatched opposition. Unless of course, the “upset” happens which has been a theme for the earlier part of this year.