Floyd Mayweather, Jr. “Victor”y Proves Fact is Stranger Than Fiction

Posted on | September 21, 2011 | No Comments

How many times have you seen a superstar in the WWE win the match against a heel while the ref wasn’t watching during the course of a dirty deed going down? As long as it’s the hero/favorite who does it, the audience typically rejoices. It’s entertainment. It’s pro wrestling. That’s what the fan base expects.

In boxing, purists would say the primary emotional requirement is respect: for both the craft of pugilism and the opponent across the ring from you. It’s a sport where you need to respect the game AND the player. The Floyd Mayweather, Jr. win on Saturday night against Victor Ortiz felt and looked like a foul to many fans watching. It may have even been ruled a foul with a point taken from Floyd if the referee had actually seen what unfolded at the final moment of the fight. Unfortunately, we will never know what could have or would have been. The fight is over, and nobody’s lobbying relentlessly for the result to be reversed. Even the calls for a rematch are few and far between in the boxing media. The fact is, as low down and dirty as Floyd’s finishing moves came across to the casual observer, the win was technically legal.

The events and incidents that made up the close of the 4th round of the Mayweather vs. Ortiz fight wouldn’t be believable if they were scripted that way. The outcome of the fight truly proves the theory that fact is stranger than fiction. Floyd’s all about drama, fortune and fame. His lifeblood is controversy and hype. So, getting a win the way he did only cements his legacy as a true boxing villain. Every move he made in the end looked almost as if he’d rehearsed it all before. Ortiz even smiled broadly when Floyd came over to his corner after the KO to wish him well. Whatever you can say about Floyd, one thing you can’t say is that he isn’t a real character. He now has the unique honor of being one of the best fighters of his generation to win a fight under such wild and crazy circumstances.

If you watched this fight and had a funny feeling you’d seen this episode before, let’s rewind the clock to 2008 when Floyd Mayweather, Jr. appeared on a WWE special to battle big man Kevin Nash (A.K.A. “The Big Show”) in a hybrid boxing/wrestling scenario:

Compared with Saturday night’s smackdown of Victor Ortiz, the above clip may help prove another theory. Life appears to be imitating art when it comes to the career of Floyd Mayweather, Junior:

Referee Joe Cortez clearly claps his hands together as if to indicate it’s time to fight again before Mayweather scores the two fight-ending, unanswered and undefended blows to the chin of an absent-minded Ortiz. Cortez appears to be eyeing the timekeeper or another ringside official rather than keeping watch on the action in the ring. It’s as if he expects them to cruise through the remaining seconds of the round casually. Mayweather’s first shot shocks Cortez back into attentiveness.

Just as Ortiz looks to the ref for protection and a ruling on the legality of the first punch, he’s clocked with the follow up right that sends him to the canvas. Instead of realizing something unsavory and potentially outside the bounds of the rules of boxing just happened under his watch and allowing Ortiz to recover and continue, Cortez went in a different direction. He began the count on Ortiz, and the knockout will forever be listed as the official outcome. There will be no asterisk next to this win on Floyd’s record. The result won’t ever be changed to a no-contest. It’s final, and that’s just the way it is.

As unexpected and unfair as the outcome may have been to many fans, it stands. It’s an odd and perhaps un-classy way to get a win, but it’s unique and somewhat special in the same breath. It’s unprecedented in many ways as well. The whole fiasco gives new meaning to the phrase, “Let’s hug it out.”

More importantly for Mayweather, the nature of this victory adds to his mystique and solidifies his legendary status as an undefeated fighter in a golden era for his division. Love him or hate him, his latest stunt is on the tip of everyone’s tongue. There’s no such thing as bad publicity for a guy like Floyd. He might get more “haters” out of the deal, but even that crowd will still watch him fight from now on, just to see what he does next.