Worth His Weight In Gold? - Victor Ortiz Says No Mas

By Ashley Thorpe

Golden Boy's light-welterweight starlet, Victor Ortiz, entered the ring on Saturday as one of the hottest prospects in world boxing but literally walked away from his chance at the interim WBA title after a ferocious six round brawl with the hard-hitting Argentine, Marcos Maidana.

The fight featured five knockdowns over the six rounds it lasted. Both men were down in the first, with Ortiz later scoring a big third round knocking Maidana down twice. Maidana (26-1 25KOs) showed tremendous heart in getting up to continue the closely contested fight before opening a cut over Ortiz's right eye and dropping him in the sixth. Exhausted and with a practically closed-up eye, Ortiz submitted making this his first true defeat after a disqualification gave him his first record loss.

It was a thrilling and gutsy, if not refined, performance by both men who gave the crowd at Staples Centre, Los Angeles their money's worth. However, even though a loss at this point in Ortiz's career is not devastating, the manner of his submission is. Ortiz will now have that question mark over whether he can be the superstar that many believe with the fact that he quit in his most important fight yet. Consider Miguel Cotto who just a few weeks earlier defended his welterweight title, from round three onwards, with a cut and impaired vision.

The loss must have come as a shock to the some 8,000 fans that came to see Ortiz win, and also to his promoters who would have had him set for a tilt at the full title later this year. This, at least for now, ends the chance of a potential title match up against another prospect, Amir Khan, should he get past the champion, Andriy Kotelnik, to take the WBA belt on July 18^th.

Indeed, Maidana's sole loss came from a split-decision against Kotelnik earlier this year in a title challenge. As interim champion, Maidana can now look forward to a second chance against the winner of Kotelnik-Khan. Ortiz, though, will have to regroup and refine himself if he is to fulfil the huge expectations of him.

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