Ortiz shocked, comes up short…
By Robert Przybylo
BPrzybylo@opubco.com
Marcos Maidana must read the Bout blog and must have seen the throwaway line by yours truly about how I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch his fight with Victor Ortiz on Saturday.
That had to be it, right? Nothing else can explain his heart and determination in stopping Ortiz in the sixth round after being dropped three times in the first two rounds.
Hey, I missed the boat on this one, admit it. After getting home from the Harrah Fight Night, I watched the HBO West edition of the fight and was just as surprised as everyone else.
The fighters traded knockdowns in the first, with Ortiz a little more unsteady than Maidana. However, in round 2, Ortiz took control as dropped Maidana twice in the final minute and looked like he was on his way to another victory.
Those first four knockdowns were a little weird as all of them happened while the other guy was thinking offense, not defense. In fact, when they were falling, they were still throwing their punches.
Ortiz would have a solid round 3 but vanished from that point forward as Maidana found a home for his right hand over and over.
After a good round 4, Maidana came on strong in round 5 as a huge left hook opened a cut over the eyelid of Ortiz right eye and a big right hand late in the round led to swelling under the left eye.
Maidana dropped Ortiz 30 seconds into round 6. And Ortiz quit. Well, the referee stopped it on advice from the doctor about the cut, but it was clear Ortiz wanted to get out of the Staples Center as soon as possible.
Ortiz was supposed to be one of the cornerstones of Golden Boy Promotions. He still might be but as Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley were consoling Ortiz after the fight, all I can think is I want to see Sugar Shane back in there.
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Finally got a chance to see the Clay Guida and Diego Sanchez fight from last weekend. Pretty clear-cut 29-28 decision for Sanchez, don’t see how you could see it any other way.
The first round was amazing and worthy of the hype. The next two rounds are good, but I don’t consider this a Fight of the Year candidate. Maybe watching it live I would have, but the intensity dropped off after the first.
Then again, it had to as not much could have equaled that level of intensity and excitement. Thought Guida was out with that leg kick in round 1. Big win for Sanchez and not too big a loss for Guida.
In other UFC news, UFC Undisputed was the No. 1 and No. 4 top-selling video game in the month of May. I believe No. 1 was for XBox 360 while the No. 4 slot was for Playstation 3.
That sounds like a good one as does boxing’s Fight Night Round 4. That’s good because if young kids are playing these games, they might learn about who some of these fighters are.
I know I did when the original Knockout Kings came out in the late ’90s. I didn’t know much about Earnie Shavers and Bob Foster (to name a few). It made me want to know more about them.
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Floyd Mayweather and Juan Manuel Marquez will try to do it again September 19. Conveniently enough that is Mexican Independence Day weekend. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’. I won’t rip the fight too much as I love watching both fighers, and I’m sure I’ll be pumped for it.
***
And finally, Bobby Lashley needed less than four minutes to take out Bob Sapp last night.
Lashley took Sapp to the ground and used a methodical ground-and-pound game until he started to fire away on the side of Sapp’s head and Sapp tapped out twice from the reports.
Tellin’ ya, like what I see from Lashley.
Back tomorrow with some thoughts from the Harrah event.
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