Larry Brown Sports

Victor Ortiz was initially criticized for quitting after the 9th round of his fight with Josesito Lopez last Saturday, but it turns out he fought through a lot more than people realize.

Ortiz’s manager told ESPN’s Dan Rafael that the fighter had his jaw fractured in two places. The first fracture was suffered in the fifth round, but Ortiz fought four more rounds with it that way. In the 9th, he got tagged on a left hook and ended up quitting after the round, telling his corner and the referee that his jaw was broken.

Doctors later saw that Ortiz had internal bleeding, which is part of why he was gagging on the thickness of his blood.

Ortiz’s mouth will be wired shut for the next two weeks, and he’s expected to need six weeks to recover. He apparently wrote a note to his manager expressing his desire to face Lopez in a rematch.

The 25-year-old was ahead of Lopez on all the judges’ cards at the time he said he couldn’t continue.

Between quitting against Marcos Maidana, headbutting Floyd Mayweather, rabbit-punching Lopez, and quitting on Saturday, Ortiz has taken a beating from boxing fans. I don’t blame him for deciding he couldn’t continue against Lopez; Only he knows how bad of a condition he was in, and if he wanted to preserve his health rather than continue to risk his well-being, it’s a decision that I respect.

Victor Ortiz represented the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity during his fight with Josesito Lopez on Saturday. Ortiz had “SigEp” embroidered on his trunks as a shoutout to the house he joined recently.

Back in April, Ortiz mentioned on Twitter that he was “officially a SigEp” at Kansas University.

Officially a SIG EP from KU!!!! @kusigep

— Victor Ortiz (@VICIOUSortiz) April 21, 2012

A girl even told him to stop by her sorority house after his initiation that night.

Ortiz grew up in Kansas and is childhood friends with one of the fraternity’s former presidents. He was invited to speak to the members at some point in the past, and he ended up joining in April.

No doubt his brothers in Kansas were watching him on Saturday against Josesito Lopez. They, along with the rest of his fans, were probably disappointed with his decision to quit after the 9th round.

Victor Ortiz’s Nevada boxing license is in question after the fighter admitted he intentionally tried to break Floyd Mayweather’s nose with a headbutt, Lance Pugmire of the LA Times reports.

Pugmire reported on his Twitter account that Keith Kizer, the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, will not license Ortiz to fight until he explains his nose breaking comments.

Ortiz told Radio Rahim of Max Boxing, “I was trying to break [Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s] nose, 100%, because he nailed me 16 times with his elbow on my right eye, which made me close my eye. I kept telling [referee Joe] Cortez about the elbow. He kept saying ‘keep fighting Victor, keep fighting.’

“My eye gets closed, so I unleashed the headbutt. Yeah it was wrong, it was very wrong. But given the fact that I had asked the ref to keep an eye on that, and I told him ‘elbow’ … you want to get dirty, I got dirty.

“For that, I started feeling bad, and that’s why I gave Floyd a hug. They got me to feel human in the ring, and I when I felt human, I paid for it.

“If I’m going to headbutt you, I’m going to break your nose next time,” Ortiz said.

Ortiz will likely be summoned to speak at the Commission’s next meeting on January 11th. Victor is scheduled to face Andre Berto in a rematch on Feb. 11th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Here is a video of Ortiz’s interview that got him in trouble:

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It turns out that the immediate downfall of Victor Ortiz against Floyd Mayweather Jr. was his kind heart. Ortiz lost to Mayweather Jr. by knockout in the fourth round of Saturday’s bout in Las Vegas that featured a controversial finish.

Ortiz had Mayweather against the ropes after throwing a flurry of punches, but he lost his mind at one point and hit Floyd with an illegal headbutt. Ortiz immediately felt badly about committing the dirty foul and he went to kiss and hug Mayweather. He then touched gloves with Floyd after being separated by the referee as a way of saying “I’m sorry.”

Then, after referee Joe Cortez had restarted the round, Ortiz approached Mayweather to give him another hug. Floyd wanted no part of the kind gesture and hit Ortiz with a left and a right that knocked him out for the fight. Victor was stunned after taking the first shot and looked at the referee as if to say, “what’s going on?” Joe Cortez had his back turned to the fighters and missed Floyd’s cheap shots. He only returned his attention to the fighters after Ortiz was being counted out.

Mayweather improved to 42-0 in one of the most pathetic knockouts of his career. I don’t consider this a win for his career but rather a loss for his legacy. He’s so protective of his most coveted asset — not money, nor cars, nor jewelry — but his undefeated record, that he’ll stoop to any level to ensure it remains unblemished. Now, the man who complained about never getting his just due, has lost my respect for good. That’s not an honorable way to win a fight.

Victor Ortiz and Floyd Mayweather Jr. will fight Saturday night in Las Vegas, with Victor’s belt, and Floyd’s perfect record, both on the line. There isn’t much hate between the fighters, and the only real controversy came from Mayweather who was upset with the way HBO’s 24/7 series was edited. About the only trash talk I heard came at Thursday’s press conference.

When Ortiz’s trainer, Danny Garcia, took the podium, he asked Floyd to fight cleanly. The implication was that Floyd is generally dirty — something I hadn’t previously heard.

“I want you to fight a clean fight. That is all I ask,” Garcia said. “You hold your elbows up and you throw your elbows. We want a clean fight.”

Mayweather shrugged off the comment, saying “We are in the ring hitting each other. It is a fight. There is no such thing as a clean fight.”

As I said, I never heard fighters complain that Floyd was dirty. In general, he doesn’t engage closely enough to use nasty tricks like headbutts in the ring. Maybe this was Garcia’s way of trying to get something in Floyd’s head. If that was the case, it’s not a bad idea — Victor needs all the help he can get to have an edge in the ring.

Life wouldn’t be normal if Floyd Mayweather Jr. didn’t have a complaint about something. The boxer’s latest issue is with HBO and the way the second episode of 24/7 Mayweather/Ortiz was edited. Mayweather made his feelings clear via Twitter.

“I was very unhappy with the second episode of 24/7,” he wrote on Twitter. “HBO needs a new editor. The network does not show the real entertainment. HBO needs to give the viewers what they deserve because 24/7 is a highly anticipated show and I don’t want to disappoint the viewers.”

I can understand where Floyd is coming from with that complaint. Compared to the first episode where Floyd and his father nearly threw down, this episode was fairly tame (read: lame). I could have done without the scene following Roger Mayweather to his anger management meeting, and overall the episode just lacked intrigue.

But Floyd’s complaints didn’t end with HBO. If they’re not going to do their job on 24/7 to create a controversy, then Floyd will do his part to create buzz. He turned his attention to Victor Ortiz and Oscar de la Hoya.

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Victor Ortiz is getting ready for his September 17th fight in Las Vegas against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Though Ortiz is preparing for the most difficult fight of his life, he’s still maintaining an online presence in the social media world.

Ortiz has over 21,000 followers on Twitter and explained during a media event this week that he prefers Twitter to Facebook. Matter of fact, Ortiz says he no longer maintains his own Facebook page but instead allows a friend to run it. His reason is simple.

“There are too many internet gangsters,” Ortiz told some children from the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. “And if it’s not the internet gangsters, it’s the stalkers,” Ortiz said of the users who can make the social media experience uncomfortable.

Ortiz isn’t the first person to drop an “internet gangster” reference here at LBS. You may recall that Keith Bulluck said the same thing of LeSean McCoy who spent his summer chiding Osi Umenyiora over Twitter.

An internet gangster, per the unimpeachable Urban Dictionary, is “One who uses the internet as a front for acting like a tough guy gang member, usually because they are hoping to gain the respect that they lack in their real life.”

You can just imagine how pathetic souls may try to act tough towards a boxer who would crush them in a real fight. No surprise Ortiz wouldn’t want to bother with that, especially given how nice he is. What’s unusual is that he kept his Twitter account but gave up his Facebook; usually it’s the other way around. We’ve shared examples of three different athletes who have given up their Twitter accounts because of all the negativity. Darn you internet gangsters acting hard, you’re ruining the online experience for all of us!