The Way I See It 07.01.09: The Blame Game

Posted by Joe Roche on 07.01.2009

Being labeled a quitter is one of the worst things that can happen to a boxer, but something worse came out of Victor Ortiz's post fight meltdown on Saturday. 411's Joe Roche examines. Plus, a look at the future of Danny Jacobs and what do Manny Pacquiao and the Pussycat Dolls have in common?


Photo by Ed Mulholland

A Golden Problem

Last week in this space I told everyone to watch Daniel Jacobs on Friday Night Fights. I am one of the many people who is high on "The Golden Child" and I thought it was a good chance for people who may have not seen this talented prospect fight to check him out. One thing that I didn't realize I'd be setting up was a jarring blow to Golden Boy Promotions brought on by the words of one Mr. Oscar De La Hoya.

During the telecast of Friday Night Fights on ESPN 2, Teddy Atlas asked Oscar De La Hoya who his favorite fighters to watch were. He wanted Oscar to tell him who his favorite fighters not within the Golden Boy camp were and he gave the tried and true "Manny Pacquiao" line, but what would wind up being his biggest gaff was who he said he thought had the most promise coming up – "Victor Ortiz."

On Friday night that sentiment did not seem out of place. Ortiz (24-2-1) was a hand chosen successor to the "Golden Boy." He had been brought over from Top Rank after a nasty breakup with Bob Arum and company and De La Hoya had been grooming Ortiz to be the next big thing. He had a great story, and a great look – he was De La Hoya 2.0. Unfortunately twenty four hours after De La Hoya told the world that he was the brightest star in a crowded universe, he was telling everyone on HBO and in the Staples Center that he had some thinking to do, and he wasn't going to go out on his shield. Victor Ortiz didn't just quit this past Saturday night against Argentine Marcos Maidana, he told the entire viewing public that he was doing so.

The exact quote, for the three of you who haven't heard it yet was: "I'm young, but I don't think I deserve to get beat up like this. So I have a lot of thinking to do."

Two things spring to mind when I hear quotes like that. The first is that Victor Ortiz needs to go home, look in his closet, dig through his drawers, and hope that he can find his heart, because that statement is not one that a professional fighter, who is only 22, who has the backing of Golden Boy Promotions, and HBO should be saying. The other thing that springs to mind is that Ortiz seems to be placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of Golden Boy Promotions for putting him in a fight against Maidana in the first place. He didn't say that he was surprised by the power, or the speed of Maidana, he said that he didn't "deserve to get beat up like this." As if Ortiz was saying that he's a bright prospect, HBO and Golden Boy shouldn't be putting him into fights where he might get pummeled like he did on Saturday.

An interesting note coming out of the weekend though seems to point to the fact that Victor Ortiz did not have a momentary lapse in heart. According to Bob Arum the criticism of Ortiz in the Top Rank camp was that Bob Trampler had told Arum that while Ortiz had all the tools, "he lacked courage". This should be taken with a grain of salt, as everyone knows Ortiz had a pretty public, pretty messy divorce from Top Rank, so Arum is being a bit self serving with those comments, but at the same time – if Ortiz has been known to fold when the pressure is on, you have to wonder if Golden Boy might have counted their chickens before they hatched with Victor. At the very least it calls into question Oscar De Lay Hoya bringing up Ortiz as the bright and shining star in the Golden Boy stable, on a night when Daniel Jacobs once again impressed the boxing world. If you want to put your eggs (enough with the chicken references) into one basket, you might want to be sure that the basket is strong enough to withstand the pressure.

The Way I See It: I think this fight may be a bit of much ado about nothing. Sure it's a big story right now because the Ortiz-Maidana fight was the juiciest looking bout of the weekend (mainly due to Golden Boy and HBO shoving it down our throats). More people saw Ortiz and Maidana then watched Daniel Jacobs, or Juan Manuel Lopez this past weekend, so more people are naturally going to talk about what was said, and what appeared to happen. But this isn't the first time a young fighter (or hell any fighter) went out in a less then fashionable sense.

Friend to 411mania Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero faced a very similar onslaughter of criticism after his fight with Daud Cino Yordan was stopped after a clash of heads. Right up until his fight with Efren Hinojsa Guerrero had to hear people talk about how he was scared to fight when cut, or that he lacked a certain type of cajones. Guerrero dealt with the naysayers and the criticism and did what any talented young fighter would and should do – got back into the ring and won a fight.

I am also pretty confident in my feeling that De La Hoya won't abandon Ortiz after this performance. Oscar himself not only quit on the stool during a fight, but essentially quit on boxing during his fight with Manny Pacquiao. Granted Oscar had started to take the downhill trip of his boxing career by the time he stepped into the ring with Pacquiao, but it would be a difficult pill to swallow for human interest fans if De La Hoya were to abandon Ortiz at this point, after he himself quit on the stool not too long ago.

My problem isn't with Ortiz quitting, although I do have a problem with that. My problem goes deeper then that. If anything Ortiz is guilty of not being PR savvy, and being unable to quickly formulate a reason why the fight was stopped. He said what was on his mind, which made him look like a fool – but who hasn't said something in the heat of the moment that they immediately wish they could take back. No my bigger problem is in the way that Ortiz said what he said, and the actual words that he used. In my mind the fact that Ortiz quit is bad, but the fact that he essentially came off as blaming Golden Boy Promotions for putting him in that position is really bad.

Right now Victor Ortiz is a bright young prospect who may need to develop some resolve. But when you look at his nasty break up with Top Rank, and now his seeming finger pointing at Golden Boy Promotions for not protecting him enough, there is a very good chance that we're seeing the dawn of Victor Ortize – primadonna.

One of the problems with the fight game right now is that one loss, or two losses can break a career in the early going. So instead of putting prospects, and young talent into the ring with quality opponents, promoters – like Golden Boy – will take their talented young fighters and feed them a steady diet of soft punchers, or guys who also work as accountants during the week. It's almost commonplace to find fighters today who are 22 to 25 years old with professional records of 24-0, or at the very least 22-1. These young prospects get into a habit of being force fed inferior talent, and when they finally do get punched in the mouth (figuratively and literally) they're not entirely prepared to handle the pressure.

Victor Ortiz has been coddled during his professional career; he has been built up as a star without actually doing anything to warrant the star treatment. Hell, he was headlining an event at the Staples Center on HBO coming off a win over someone named Mike Amaoutis. It appears as if Ortiz just thought that the good time would keep rolling and that he'd keep raking up wins, and becoming a bigger and bigger star. But Marcos Maidana needs to eat too, and his game plan was to come forward, throw punches and throw Ortiz off his game. This is precisely what happened. Ortiz was flustered by the offense, his game plan went out the window and he decided to just trade blows with Maidana. It worked for a little while but when the fight kept coming, and the punches kept coming Ortiz decided he had enough. He was let down by Golden Boy for not giving him another stiff to showcase himself in front of – and it's that feeling, the entitlement that comes with being a bright young prospect that concerns me more then a snap decision statement made to HBO after a deflating loss.

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The Golden Child

If you all took my advice and watched Friday Night Fights on ESPN 2 last Friday you saw Danny Jacobs (17-0, 15 KO's) TKO George Walton in the 8th round. This fight was the 1st 10 round fight for Jacobs, and as Teddy Atlas said during the telecast, he's rated #8 by the WBA. Before I get into the fight I would like to mention that it's ridiculous to rate Jacobs #8 right now because he's only had one fight scheduled for 10 rounds, and no fights scheduled for 12 rounds which is what he'd have to fight in a title fight.

That being said, if you watched Jacobs on Friday, or if you've seen him in the past you know that he's at least preparing himself for a title fight by the end of next year. I'd give him about three more fights before I started looking at him as a serious contender for a championship, and even then he'd have to impress against some of the bigger names in the middleweight ranks.

Before talking about the future of Jacobs though I'd just like to mention this most recent fight against Walton which showed two things about "The Golden Child." The first is that not only does he have blinding hand speed but he has great stamina. He landed more punches throughout his fight then Walton threw. I realize that he has big knockout numbers through the early portion of his career, but Jacobs is not a knockout puncher. He is the type of fighter that is going to wear you down with volume, and is not likely to catch a lot of guys with early knockouts. I think that will be a positive for him though because Jacobs himself admitted that he's not a knockout fighter, it's a good thing for a young fighter like Jacobs to understand his limits, because I'd hate to see him in a fight where he's just standing front and center and trying to drop his opponent.

Now that being said, I'd also like to point out that Danny Jacobs has more power then people give him credit for. Yes, he has blinding hand speed, and yes he is technically sound – but those punches that he throw don't just glance off his opponent. He has something behind those punches that he's throwing and that could be a problem for guys at middleweight who Jacobs will face in the future.

In light of what happened this past weekend though I don't think I'm out of line by saying that Danny Jacobs is now one of, if not the brightest up and coming star in the Golden Boy Promotions stable, and I'd expect a lot of hype surrounding his next fight from the De La Hoya camp as they attempt to get some of the heat back that they lost after the Ortiz debacle. The question remains, where do we go from here with Jacobs?

The Way I See It: Earlier I complained about Ortiz feeling entitled to be hand fed suspect challengers coming back to bite him in the ass. I do not want to see a similar fate befall Danny Jacobs. At this point I understand the appeal of building a rising star in the middleweight division, but I also see the benefit of bumping him up to bigger competition and seeing what happens. Remember this kid took the Michael Walker fight on 8 days notice and won a pretty solid 8 round decision – I think he has the make up of a star, but at some point you need to throw him to the wolves and find out what he has.

In this day and age losing one fight can derail a prospect so obviously I'm not advocating that Oscar get the checkbook out and entice the WBA to line up Anthony Mundine, or Felix Sturm, but I do think it's time to see if Jacobs deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as those guys – which apparently the WBA believes he is. There are certain fighters on the WBA Top 15 that I think would make for interesting fights with Jacobs, and I think he's lucky that he's a middleweight because none of them would really strike fear into me if I was Jacobs, or Golden Boy.

Daniel Edouard (22-2-2, 13 KO's) fits all of the criteria that I'd be looking for if I was handling Danny Jacobs. He's a decently appealing prospect, at 28 he's still in the game, and the WBA has him ranked #9 which would make for an appealing fight. Edouard has already had some fights where he's taken a huge step up including a 3rd round TKO loss to Jermain Taylor in 2005, which makes him a perfect opponent for a guy looking to gain some experience against a solid fighter who has taken on some of the "best." In additional Edouard presents a very difficult style for Jacobs, much like Maidana did for Ortiz, Edouard is going to come straight at "The Golden Child" and it'd be interesting to see if Jacobs dealt with that better then Ortiz did on Saturday. Edouard would also be high on my list of opponents for Jacobs because frankly he'd beat Edouard, which is in the end what you want to look for if you're planning the next move for Jacobs. This fight could be billed as a bout between future contenders for a championship, even if the WBA rankings are a bit suspicious. Additionally, you can't take away Edouard's ability to have an entertaining fight, he will throw punches and he will come at you – which should make HBO or ESPN happy depending on who decides to air the fight.

Miguel Espino (20-2-1, 9 KO's) is another fighter that I'd look to if I was planning the future for Jacobs. Espino actually lost to Edouard in 2003, but that was during a period where he was having what I'd consider a bit of a career hiccup. Lately Espino has been rebuilding himself at the expense of fighters who have career records of 3-6-1, or 40-36-2. I think Espino would be an interesting opponent for Jacobs and I think he's regarded enough that a win over him would mean something to someone.

Mahir Oral (25-2-2, 10 KO's). Ok this one I would classify as not going to happen, but in some regard it does make sense. Oral fought this past weekend against "King" Arthur Abraham and got humbled to say the least. Being knocked down five times in 10 rounds is enough to make even the most hardened fight fan admit that you need some rebuilding before you're considered a top of the line contender again. This would be a very intriguing fight from a storyline prospective because it would Oral's attempt at coming back from throwing in the towel against the King, and Jacobs making a leap in talent level and trying to stake his claim to some spot in the conversation of best up and coming middleweights. Oral has never fought in the United States before and his record is probably a bit misleading because he hasn't beaten much of anyone. He won a split decision against Domenico Spada in 2007, and beat up Alexander Sipos a couple of times but it's really not the most impressive resume you've ever seen. This fight would have happen in the United States as the intent is to put Jacobs across as a legitimate star, so I imagine this fight would have to occur in New York, or perhaps one of the Connecticut Casino's as part of a Friday Night Fights broadcast. I'm not sure this one would/could happen but it might be an interesting fight for both guys with some good storylines, and perhaps a chance to make a star out of Danny Jacobs.

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The Way I See The News

- Congratulations to Paul Spadafora (42-0-1, 17 KO's) for making his comeback this past week with a convincing victory in his hometown of Pittsburg, PA. It's not every day that you hear a feel good story about someone who spent time in prison for shooting his girlfriend but his personal demons side Spadafora is a pretty good fighter. He's got Pernell Whitaker in his corner now so if nothing else the two of them will either make a great team, or disappear for six months without a word to anyone.

- David Haye's people are saying that they would travel to fight Vitali Klitschko in September, which is probably the only way that fight could/would get done. Wladimir has essentially told Haye that he's not going to fight him as payback for the pre-fight antics of Haye leading up to their aborted June 20th bout in Germany. Vitali is supposedly working on a fight with Nikolai Valuev which would leave Haye out in the cold, a result that I am sure worries Haye. Personally I think one of the Klitschko's should fight Haye after all of the junk he talked leading up to not fighting Wladimir, but only time will tell what will happen.

- Fans of HBO 24/7 will be glad to hear that the series will start up again on August 29th in preparation for the Floyd Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez bout now scheduled for September 19th.

- How's this for an awkward cast? Manny Pacquiao is set to start filming on a new movie called "Wapakman" soon alongside WWE star Dave Batista, and Pussycat Doll Nicole Szcherinzger. The movie is being described in the same vein as "Kung Fu Hustle" but with less Stephen Chow and more Manny Pacquiao.

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The Way I See The Week Ahead

It's a light week ahead as the 4th of July falls on Saturday and is keeping almost everyone out of the limelight.

Pick of the Week: Alexander Dimitrenko (29-0-0, 19 KO's) –vs- Eddie Chambers (34-1-0, 18 KO's) in Hamburg, Germany (WBO Heavyweight Title Eliminator)