Floyd Mayweather defeated Victor Ortiz in the 4th round tonight by a very controversial knockout.

Ortiz had headbutted Mayweather. The ref, Joseph ‘Joe’ Cortez, had gone to the judges to deduct a point.

As he did, Ortiz hugged Mayweather and apologized.

As Ortiz backed off, he looked at Cortez, Mayweather checked Cortez to make sure he wasn’t looking and then sent a left handed hook to the side of Ortiz’s skull. He followed with an overhand right and down went Ortiz.  

Ortiz’s hands were down the entire time as he was looking at the ref who was looking and talking to the judges near ringside.

After the fight, boxing analyst Larry Merchant entered the ring to interview Mayweather.  Mayweather wasted no time unloading on Merchant calling him an ass and saying that Merchant never gave him any respect. Mayweather was all up in his face and kept saying, “You never give me a fair shake. You don’t know sh*t about boxing. HBO should fire you.  You ain’t sh*t”

Merchant started to laugh and walk away but then…

Merchant turned back into Mayweather and replied, “If I was 50 years younger I’d kick your ass!”

A hilarious finish to the end of another crazy boxing match.

Here is the video while it lasts…

It wasn’t exactly a verbal body blow, but Victor Ortiz made it clear that he’s willing to get under Floyd Mayweather’s skin.  In an interview for his upcoming bout with the welterweight champion, Ortiz had this to say:

“It’s a cool thing, because ever since I was a kid, I’ve said I’ll be the first to defeat Mayweather, and now I’m on the doorstep of making it true.”

“Mayweather’s quick, he’s a great fighter, but I’ve never been that impressed with his style,” Ortiz said.

Those are pretty tough words considering the fact that Mayweather is 41-0 with 25 knockouts.  Of course, Ortiz may just think he needs to hype the fight as much as possible.  And a psychological advantage against the reigning champ might be the only chance Ortiz has when he and Mayweather go toe-to-toe.

Going into this fight Mayweather faces several distractions, including three criminal cases, and the possibility of a lucrative 2012 super fight against Manny Pacquiao.

“I don’t think [Mayweather's issues] matter,” Ortiz said. “He’s an elite fighter, one of the greatest of all time. At the end of the day, I think boxing and reality are two separate things.”

“Boxing and reality are two separate things.”  Well, that’s probably about the smartest thing the kid could say.  I hope he’s ready for reality to pound him mercilessly when he takes on Mayweather.

[PhotoSource: The LA Times]

Boxing great, Floyd Mayweather, is in trouble with IRS…but only for the second time in 3 years.  According to RadarOnline:

The IRS has just body slammed the undefeated boxer with a $3.4 million bill, reports the Detroit News who discovered that the lien was for unpaid 2009 federal income taxes.

This isn’t Mayweather’s first time in the ring with the IRS. In 2008, he was hit with a $6.1 million tax bill. He worked out a payment plan with the feds for that one.

Mayweather goes by the nickname ‘Money’, which is all the IRS is asking for, really.  So how hard can it be for a guy named after currency to pay his bills?  Maybe his nickname should be “My Money”.

[PhotoSource: RadarOnline]

Cotto - not nearly as old as Mayorga

Yes, welterweight is a weight class in boxing, and it’s members probably represent the purest form of the ’sweet science’.  However, it’s a little like watching a couple of sweaty, enraged elves beating the hell out of each other because one slept with the other’s sister.  In any event, the bout last night between a not-so-young Miguel Cotto and a middle-aged Ricardo Mayorga turned out to be worth the price of admission.  Unless, of course, you were actually sitting ringside.  Who can afford those tix, anyway?  Cotto won, by the way.  According to The New York Times:

Cotto fought with discipline for 11 rounds before unleashing a vicious left hook in the 12th round Saturday night that put an exclamation point on his successful defense of his 154-pound title against the wild-swinging Mayorga.

The hook dropped Mayorga to the canvas and he quit a few seconds later, ending an entertaining bout between two boxers trying to resurrect their careers.

“It was a really good fight with an amazing finish,” Cotto said.

Cotto was ahead by five points on all three ringside scorecards entering the final round and seemingly headed to a win by decision. But he caught Mayorga in an exchange early in the round and, though Mayorga got up, he told referee Robert Byrd when action resumed that he couldn’t go on.

Cotto was a big favorite to retain the title, but Mayorga fought a competitive fight and landed well in flurries to the head. He took more punches than he gave out, though, with Cotto outscoring him 249-176 in total punches scored at ringside.

Okay, so it was a good fight right into the 12th round.  But for us guys who learned everything we know about boxing from watching four too many Rocky movies, where are all the unrealistic, jackhammer-like punches?  Where are all the lardasses like a 44 year-old-George Foreman awkwardly lumbering around the ring, swinging wildly at Evander Holyfield like a shaved grizzly bear on Valium?

Well, here’s to the bookies and all the fight promoters in Vegas.  I’m sure there’s still a lot of money to be made off of insanely fast, pint-sized pugilists working out their ‘little man syndromes’ against one another in the ring.  But is it really too much to ask for the Pay-Per-View guys to rig up some sort of audio device that makes every punch sound like a muffled 12-gauge blast?

Ah, well.  Us fat guys can still dream, can’t we?

[PhotoSource: Myboxing.com]

Obviously, this fight was scheduled some time ago.  However, had the NFL and NFLPA come to a consensus on a collective bargaining agreement before the players’ union de-certified on March 11, it would have never happened.  For the second time since his days at Notre Dame, Tommy Zbikowski won a professional boxing match.  And the payday surely softened the blow of being ‘laid off’ for the undetermined future by his NFL employer.

Zbikowski barely broke a sweat Saturday night in stopping Richard Bryant at 1:45 of the first round of a scheduled four-round fight on the undercard of the Miguel Cotto-Ricardo Mayorga 154-pound title fight. Zbikowski, who last fought while still attending Notre Dame, earned $50,000. He dropped Bryant with a left hook to the body and referee Russell Mora waved the fight to a close after Bryant got up at the count of seven.

“I was looking to get a little more work but you take a win any way you can get it,” Zbikowski said. “I know I hurt him with the hook, you could feel the air come out.”

Zbikowski is serious about boxing.  In his mind, there’s nothing to fall back on at this point in his life, so he’s training as if his professional football days are all but over.

“I wanted to get the ring rust off in this fight,” he said. “Right now this isn’t a second career for me. It’s a first career.”

It will be quite interesting to see what kinds of interesting activities the ‘former’ players of the NFL get into now that the safety clauses in their contracts are all null and void.  Peyton Manning and MMA?  It could happen.  That nose of his can’t get any worse anyway, right?

[PhotoSource: CottovsMayorga]

The Greatest

Artist Michael Kalish has honored boxing great, Muhammad Ali with his own sculpture; a 22 ft. high image of the champ made from 1300 speed bags.  According to Gizmodo:

Each speed bag was treated as a pixel and when put all together, formed the face, and classic snarl, of Muhammad Ali. The rest of the 22-foot high installation uses 6.5 miles of stainless steel cable, 2,500 pounds of aluminum piping and took three years to complete.

The scultpure, call ‘The Greatest’ will be on display in Los Angeles starting this month.  Muhammad Ali, himself, will secure the final bag at its grand unveiling.

Being from the Midwest, I’ve heard story after story about Tommy Morrison.  The fights in Kansas City area bars, sexing up multiple women every night, the drugs and the dumb ass ‘I’m the Champ’ attitude he displayed to everyone he met.  There was a time in the late ’80s and early ’90s when ‘the great white hype’ was extremely popular.  My high school girlfriend’s mom actually had a huge poster of Morrison sitting in her room.  Not my girlfriend, mind you, her mom.  A little creepy, but okay.

Today, Morrison is the shadow of the man he once was – both physically and mentally.  Once on top of the world, he’s no longer allowed to fight in the ring due to the HIV he contracted years ago during one of his many love fests.  He still trains, however, hoping to get one more chance at a championship.  And every couple of years, someone does an interview with him just to hear the crazy sh*t that comes out of his mouth.

This time around, Morrison claims that HIV doesn’t exist.  No, he’s not talking about his HIV like it doesn’t exist, as if it were miraculously cured by self-actualization or some wonder drug.  He’s talking about HIV in general.  Oh, and teleportation.  Confused yet?  The Kansas City Star’s Sam Mellinger explains:

Tommy wants to talk to you about HIV. It’s a farce, he says. An invention by a scientist who wanted to make money, a lie kept alive by a government that wants to scare people. He doesn’t have HIV, never did, and besides, it’s not the deadly disease it’s been made out to be.

What he says sounds crazy, but there is an obvious and undeniable fact sitting in front of you: Tommy Morrison is still alive and apparently healthy, 15 years after testing positive for HIV. Magic Johnson tested positive five years before Tommy, but Johnson has wealth and the very best medical care.

He speaks with such certainty, such conviction, and even has a negative HIV test from last year to show you. That test has been disputed. It could be someone else’s blood, and his name is on failed tests, too. Still, it’s hard not to wonder enough to call a doctor.

Joel Gallant is a professor at Johns Hopkins University and one of the leading HIV specialists in the country. He says there are slow progressers, people who do fine without treatment, so Tommy’s apparent health “doesn’t tell you much one way or the other,” and that “he’s not cured; that’s not one of the possibilities.”

Regardless of the good doctors words, Morrison takes it a completely different way.  There seems to be some odd filter in his mind that turns logical, straightforward information into crazy.

“You have just confirmed to me that there does not exist a test that confirms or dispels whether I or anyone has the HIV VIRUS 100%,” he writes to Gallant.

It’s interesting to note that Morrison has a steady girlfriend with whom he practices unprotected sex.  Well, there’s something to be said for sticking to you’re convictions.  I just don’t know what in this case.

Morrison is ready to fight, or so he says.  He’ll never get the chance.  But in his mind, he’s almost as healthy as he was at 24 when he won the WBO Heavyweight title.

“I think about boxing more now. I’m better,” he says. “They’re not used to that. A white guy that has hand speed, power, charisma, and can talk in complete sentences? (Shoot). Sounds like a gold mine to me.”

He also claims he once teleported out of an area bar.  Pretty cool, if you ask me, but I doubt that statement is going to help him much with the boxing commission.  I wonder what Morrison will have to say in another couple of years.  He hasn’t yet played the ‘abducted by aliens’ card.

[Photo Source: KC Star]

Boxing great Manny Pacquiao outlasted a resilient Antonio Margarito to win the Junior Middleweight Title on Saturday night at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas by decision.

Manny won on all the judge’s scorecards by 120-108, 118-110, 119-109.

Most ringside and watching on pay-per-view had Manny winning all 12 rounds. However, Margarito was extremely tough and aggressive in constantly coming after Manny during the 12 round fight.

WBC boxing champion Edwin Valero, who admitted to killing his wife over the weekend, was found hanging dead in his jail cell from suicide.  The troubled boxer used his own clothes to create a noose and end his life.

Venezuelan police chief Wilmer Flores told reporters how Valero was found:

He said Valero was found by another inmate, who alerted authorities in the police lockup in north-central Carabobo state. Valero still showed signs of life when they took him down, but they were unable to save him and he died about 1:30 a.m., Flores said.

The 28-year-old was detained Sunday on suspicion of killing his wife. Prosecutors said Sunday night that they had planned to charge Valero in the killing.

Related: WBC Boxing Champ Edwin Valero Suspected of Killing Wife Jennifer Viera

WBC lightweight boxing champion Edwin Valero has been detained in Mexico over the suspicion that he killed his 20-year old wife, Jennifer Viera.  Her dead body was found in a hotel in Valencia, Venezuela.  Hotel officials claim that Valero told their security guards that he killed Viera before leaving the hotel.

Valero was charged last month for harassing his wife when she showed up at a hospital in Merida with a punctured lung and broken ribs.

Valero entered a Venezuelan rehabilitation center under on March 28 for treatment of drug and alcohol addiction, Mora said at the time. The boxer’s attorney said Viera was injured when she fell down a flight of stairs at the couple’s home while checking a water tank located on the roof.

Valero’s U.S. was not renewed over a DUI arrest in Texas.  The judge in the above case released Valero, pending trial, as long as he checked in every 90 days.  That bonehead move by the judge cost Viera her life.  Valero had already threatened the life of anyone at the hospital that treated his wife while she was trying to get care.

As a boxer (who cares), Valero has a career record of 27-0 and had been scheduled to fight again next week.

The Venezuelan, as can be seen above, has a chest tattoo of the Venezuelan flag and president dictator Hugo Chavez on his chest.

UPDATE: Edwin Valero has been found dead in jail of an apparent suicide.