Mayweather V. Ortiz
- Thread starter dookie1
- Start date
weigh in (I believe it starts at 2:45pm)
http://sports.yahoo.com/video/player/box/Live/26591842#box/Live/26591842
http://www.ustream.tv/mayweathervsortiz
http://sports.yahoo.com/video/player/box/Live/26591842#box/Live/26591842
http://www.ustream.tv/mayweathervsortiz
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/15/3145703/boxer-ortiz-has-special-relationship.html
Posted on Fri, Sep. 16, 2011
Boxer Ortiz has special relationship with Lawrence
By RUSTIN DODD
The Kansas City Star
LAWRENCE | Early afternoon, warm and sunny, and the pathways leading up to the big white pillars are empty and calm.
This is the front of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house, a red brick fraternity on the corner of Tennessee Street, just down the road from the University of Kansas.
If you’re looking for a reason why Victor Ortiz, one of the best welterweight boxers in the world, spends his vacation time among the tree-lined streets in this Midwestern college town, you might as well start in front of these white pillars.
On Saturday night, Ortiz, a native of Garden City, Kan., will defend his World Boxing Council Welterweight title against undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the most pressurized fight of his life. Ortiz is just 24, a survivor from a broken home in western Kansas. Mayweather, 34, is already a boxing icon and millionaire many times over.
When the time comes, Ortiz will walk into the ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and celebrities will dot the first few rows, and a delicious fight-night buzz will engulf the city.
Back in Lawrence, at the Sig Ep house, they will crowd around the television and watch it all unfold.
Maybe they’ll tell the story from this past summer, when Ortiz showed up with the WBC title belt he earned by beating the previously undefeated Andre Berto on April 16.
The prizefighter and the frat house. It seems like an unlikely pairing. That is, until you listen to the stories and understand why the championship boxer from humble roots now says this town feels like a second home.
“It’s the regular college life,” says Brennan Killen, a Sigma Phi Epsilon member.
“He always wanted to live that life,” says Adam Price, a childhood friend from Garden City and former president at Sig Ep. “I know he wanted to have a part of that, but he had to grow up fast. He didn’t have that support that a lot of us do.”
Saturday night’s fight has been dubbed “Star Power” by promoters, and maybe that’s appropriate for a Mayweather bout.
But while Mayweather’s celebrity has exploded over the last four years — an appearance on television’s “Dancing with the Stars” and a steady stream of legal issues fueling Mayweather’s “Money” persona — Ortiz has been content to escape back to Kansas when he can.
The roots of this relationship sprouted more than two years ago, when Ortiz would return to Lawrence for short vacations between fights. He was a top prospect then, still having to prove himself in the unforgiving world of professional boxing.
Price had known Ortiz since middle school in Garden City, and he wanted his fraternity brothers to hear Victor’s story.
So there was Ortiz, walking through the white pillars and speaking from the heart.
Ortiz says his mother abandoned the family when he was 7. He says his father was a heavy drinker who disappeared for long stretches, leaving Victor and his brother, Temo, to fend for themselves. But Ortiz would find sanctuary at the local boxing gym in Garden City. And after being taken in by a local family, he would eventually make his way to California to continue his career in a professional gym.
“I was supposed to be a druggie and an alcoholic, according to the statistics,” Ortiz told The Star earlier this year. “But instead, I turned that around ... and now I’m still going strong.”
Price invited Ortiz to Lawrence because he wanted his childhood friend to experience the college life, and he wanted his fraternity — filled with kids from money and privilege — to hear Victor’s tale.
“It was pretty much his story,” Price says, “and letting those guys know that he was not given anything; to let them know that you’ve got to work for what you want in life.”
All around Lawrence, you can hear stories like this one, Ortiz coming back to visit old friends and leaving with a cellphone full of new ones.
“It was kind of funny,” Price says. “Everybody would be being buddy-buddy with him like, ‘Is this guy really a boxer?’ He’s not Floyd Mayweather. He’s the total opposite of Floyd, as far as attitude goes.”
Ortiz’s connections stretch all over campus. Former KU basketball star Cole Aldrich counts Ortiz as a close friend. Aldrich says they met a few months after Kansas won the NCAA basketball title in 2008. And after a few years of waiting, Aldrich will finally make good on a promise this weekend: He’ll be at the fight in Vegas.
“He’s just such a humble guy,” Aldrich says. “He’s my age, and not many guys that age are huge names in boxing, especially coming out of a state like Kansas with his background. It just puts a really nice story together.”
This is part of what Ortiz means when he talks about building his own family. He wore a Jayhawk on his boxing trunks during his last two fights. He says it’s a reminder of his past — and the relationships he’s forged over the past few years.
“A lot of friends (are coming) from Kansas,” Ortiz told reporters in Las Vegas on Wednesday. “Kansas is taking over Vegas.”
Ortiz will be a decided underdog on Saturday. The mercurial Mayweather has never lost in 41 professional bouts, knocking out 25 of his opponents; Ortiz comes in at 29-2-2, with 22 knockouts.
Still, Ortiz has at least a puncher’s chance. He awed spectators with his prodigious power in a unanimous-decision victory over Berto, and he’s 10 years younger than Mayweather.
Ortiz’s hardscrabble childhood became part of the story line during Wednesday’s bravado-infused news conference hyping the fight in Las Vegas, when Mayweather accused Ortiz of embellishing the tale for his own benefit.
Ortiz exchanged a few verbal jabs but mostly remained focused on his goal: handing Mayweather his first loss.
“He has to try to put somebody down to make himself look good,” Ortiz said.
In times of stress, Ortiz recalls the good times in Lawrence. Pickup basketball games during the day. Food runs on Mass Street at night. An afternoon of video games, and maybe a couple of nights of couch-surfing here and there.
“He’s just a kid from a small-town place in Kansas,” says Killen, “and that’s what he still is. Most people don’t even know he’s a high-profile boxer until like the fourth time they’ve hung out with him.”
Until this week, Killen had been planning to make the trip out to Vegas. He started working at a jewelry company last summer, and he designed a ring to commemorate Ortiz’s victory over Berto.
“It’s got a Jayhawk in the middle of it,” he says.
If nothing else, Killen will ship the ring to Vegas and gather with a group of Sig Eps on Saturday night to watch the fight.
A few weeks ago, Ortiz was imagining this very scene: thousands of people surrounding televisions in Garden City, and a campus in Lawrence bonding over an adopted son.
“(That’s) almost sounding like a Rocky movie,” Ortiz said. “Remember … it was Christmastime and all these little kids are watching TV… and Rocky’s like, ‘Adrian!’ ”
Posted on Fri, Sep. 16, 2011
Boxer Ortiz has special relationship with Lawrence
By RUSTIN DODD
The Kansas City Star
LAWRENCE | Early afternoon, warm and sunny, and the pathways leading up to the big white pillars are empty and calm.
This is the front of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house, a red brick fraternity on the corner of Tennessee Street, just down the road from the University of Kansas.
If you’re looking for a reason why Victor Ortiz, one of the best welterweight boxers in the world, spends his vacation time among the tree-lined streets in this Midwestern college town, you might as well start in front of these white pillars.
On Saturday night, Ortiz, a native of Garden City, Kan., will defend his World Boxing Council Welterweight title against undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the most pressurized fight of his life. Ortiz is just 24, a survivor from a broken home in western Kansas. Mayweather, 34, is already a boxing icon and millionaire many times over.
When the time comes, Ortiz will walk into the ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and celebrities will dot the first few rows, and a delicious fight-night buzz will engulf the city.
Back in Lawrence, at the Sig Ep house, they will crowd around the television and watch it all unfold.
Maybe they’ll tell the story from this past summer, when Ortiz showed up with the WBC title belt he earned by beating the previously undefeated Andre Berto on April 16.
The prizefighter and the frat house. It seems like an unlikely pairing. That is, until you listen to the stories and understand why the championship boxer from humble roots now says this town feels like a second home.
“It’s the regular college life,” says Brennan Killen, a Sigma Phi Epsilon member.
“He always wanted to live that life,” says Adam Price, a childhood friend from Garden City and former president at Sig Ep. “I know he wanted to have a part of that, but he had to grow up fast. He didn’t have that support that a lot of us do.”
Saturday night’s fight has been dubbed “Star Power” by promoters, and maybe that’s appropriate for a Mayweather bout.
But while Mayweather’s celebrity has exploded over the last four years — an appearance on television’s “Dancing with the Stars” and a steady stream of legal issues fueling Mayweather’s “Money” persona — Ortiz has been content to escape back to Kansas when he can.
The roots of this relationship sprouted more than two years ago, when Ortiz would return to Lawrence for short vacations between fights. He was a top prospect then, still having to prove himself in the unforgiving world of professional boxing.
Price had known Ortiz since middle school in Garden City, and he wanted his fraternity brothers to hear Victor’s story.
So there was Ortiz, walking through the white pillars and speaking from the heart.
Ortiz says his mother abandoned the family when he was 7. He says his father was a heavy drinker who disappeared for long stretches, leaving Victor and his brother, Temo, to fend for themselves. But Ortiz would find sanctuary at the local boxing gym in Garden City. And after being taken in by a local family, he would eventually make his way to California to continue his career in a professional gym.
“I was supposed to be a druggie and an alcoholic, according to the statistics,” Ortiz told The Star earlier this year. “But instead, I turned that around ... and now I’m still going strong.”
Price invited Ortiz to Lawrence because he wanted his childhood friend to experience the college life, and he wanted his fraternity — filled with kids from money and privilege — to hear Victor’s tale.
“It was pretty much his story,” Price says, “and letting those guys know that he was not given anything; to let them know that you’ve got to work for what you want in life.”
All around Lawrence, you can hear stories like this one, Ortiz coming back to visit old friends and leaving with a cellphone full of new ones.
“It was kind of funny,” Price says. “Everybody would be being buddy-buddy with him like, ‘Is this guy really a boxer?’ He’s not Floyd Mayweather. He’s the total opposite of Floyd, as far as attitude goes.”
Ortiz’s connections stretch all over campus. Former KU basketball star Cole Aldrich counts Ortiz as a close friend. Aldrich says they met a few months after Kansas won the NCAA basketball title in 2008. And after a few years of waiting, Aldrich will finally make good on a promise this weekend: He’ll be at the fight in Vegas.
“He’s just such a humble guy,” Aldrich says. “He’s my age, and not many guys that age are huge names in boxing, especially coming out of a state like Kansas with his background. It just puts a really nice story together.”
This is part of what Ortiz means when he talks about building his own family. He wore a Jayhawk on his boxing trunks during his last two fights. He says it’s a reminder of his past — and the relationships he’s forged over the past few years.
“A lot of friends (are coming) from Kansas,” Ortiz told reporters in Las Vegas on Wednesday. “Kansas is taking over Vegas.”
Ortiz will be a decided underdog on Saturday. The mercurial Mayweather has never lost in 41 professional bouts, knocking out 25 of his opponents; Ortiz comes in at 29-2-2, with 22 knockouts.
Still, Ortiz has at least a puncher’s chance. He awed spectators with his prodigious power in a unanimous-decision victory over Berto, and he’s 10 years younger than Mayweather.
Ortiz’s hardscrabble childhood became part of the story line during Wednesday’s bravado-infused news conference hyping the fight in Las Vegas, when Mayweather accused Ortiz of embellishing the tale for his own benefit.
Ortiz exchanged a few verbal jabs but mostly remained focused on his goal: handing Mayweather his first loss.
“He has to try to put somebody down to make himself look good,” Ortiz said.
In times of stress, Ortiz recalls the good times in Lawrence. Pickup basketball games during the day. Food runs on Mass Street at night. An afternoon of video games, and maybe a couple of nights of couch-surfing here and there.
“He’s just a kid from a small-town place in Kansas,” says Killen, “and that’s what he still is. Most people don’t even know he’s a high-profile boxer until like the fourth time they’ve hung out with him.”
Until this week, Killen had been planning to make the trip out to Vegas. He started working at a jewelry company last summer, and he designed a ring to commemorate Ortiz’s victory over Berto.
“It’s got a Jayhawk in the middle of it,” he says.
If nothing else, Killen will ship the ring to Vegas and gather with a group of Sig Eps on Saturday night to watch the fight.
A few weeks ago, Ortiz was imagining this very scene: thousands of people surrounding televisions in Garden City, and a campus in Lawrence bonding over an adopted son.
“(That’s) almost sounding like a Rocky movie,” Ortiz said. “Remember … it was Christmastime and all these little kids are watching TV… and Rocky’s like, ‘Adrian!’ ”
http://sports.yahoo.com/box/news;_ylt=Agb3xUcVfHFgMcONEbu_Lu85nYcB?slug=ki-iole_mayweather_ortiz_091411
LAS VEGAS – Victor Ortiz was staring at the floor, speaking dispassionately, rarely making eye contact, when someone mentioned that fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena could be a life-changing event.
The dashing 24-year-old with the dazzling smile lifted his head, locked his eyes on a man across from him and smirked.
“Life-changing event? This? You think for a guy like me, a guy who has been through what I’ve been through, that this is a life changing event?” Ortiz asked. “Try living in my shoes for a while and see if you think a fight is a life-changing event. My life changed years ago, bro.”
Ortiz’s life changed in unimaginable ways at an age when most of his peers still believed in Santa Claus. When he was just seven years old, his mother abandoned him.
“There one minute, gone the next,” Ortiz said with a shake of the head.
A few years later, his father skipped as well, leaving his three young children to fend for themselves. He grew up in Garden City, Kan., essentially on his own. He learned early on how cruel life could be, but the experience also proved something to him, a trait that is essential for a boxer.
The soft-spoken boy who sang in the school choir and played in piano recitals discovered a determination and an inner toughness that belied his cherubic face. He was a survivor. Life might knock him down, but as much as it hurt deep inside, he kept getting up and fighting back.
The biggest fight of his life was making it to his 16th birthday.
To Ortiz, a fight for the World Boxing Council welterweight title against the 41-0 Mayweather, who is – along with Manny Pacquiao – one of the two biggest stars in boxing, is not all that intimidating. It is, he has repeatedly insisted, simply another day at the office.
Mayweather is masterful at playing mind games with his opponents, perhaps better at that than he is in the ring, where he has fashioned a reputation not only as the top boxer of his era but also as one of the great fighters ever.
He hasn’t missed an opportunity to taunt Ortiz. At Wednesday’s news conference in the Hollywood Theatre at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, Mayweather said he had invited Robert Garcia, Ortiz’s estranged ex-trainer, and World Boxing Association lightweight champion Brandon Rios, Ortiz’s one-time friend and now bitter enemy, to attend Saturday’s fight as his guest.
Mayweather said he might ask Garcia and Rios to walk to the ring with him. Robert Garcia, whose older brother, Danny, now trains Ortiz, said he and Rios would accept Mayweather’s offer to at least attend the fight, even if they likely won’t walk him to the ring.
The stunt raised a lot of eyebrows, but it just got a shrug from Ortiz.
“It doesn’t bother me, because I’m a tree stump,” Ortiz said. “He can say whatever he wants.”
Ortiz is 29-2-2 and coming off an exceptional win over Andre Berto on April 16 that earned him the WBC title. Ortiz put Berto down twice in the fight, which isn’t a surprise considering that Ortiz has knocked down every opponent he has faced at least once.
Perhaps more significant in that fight, though, was that Berto knocked Ortiz down twice. Each time, Ortiz pulled himself off the canvas and jumped back into the battle, ratcheting up his intensity and fighting even harder.
It was a defining moment in his career because, less than two years earlier in Los Angeles in a bout against Marcos Maidana, Ortiz quit in the sixth round. Afterward, he told HBO’s Max Kellerman in the ring, “I’m young, but I don’t think I deserve to get beaten up like this.”
That comment has, in many ways, defined his career, even though it came only seconds after a heated battle against one of boxing’s most powerful punchers had ended. Ortiz likely had a concussion and says now he has no memories of the bout.
Yet, his decision to wave the white flag, perhaps the only time in his life he has ever quit at anything, has haunted him ever since.
Before a recent training session at his gym in the shadow of the famed Las Vegas Strip, Mayweather paced outside his ring, bellowing, “Once a quitter, always a quitter! He quit once and he’ll do it again.”
Ortiz has heard it all so many times, he’s become numb to it. There was a lot that went into that fight that has hasn’t felt compelled to share in his defense.
“It was super overplayed because I never arrived mentally,” Ortiz said of his decision to quit against Maidana. “My coaches thought I was fine [but] I never once told them I broke my wrist two weeks before the fight. They didn’t know it. My buddies happened to be doctors, and I won’t mention any names due to they could get in trouble, but I went to my buddies and illegally, I shot myself with cortisone.
“I went into the fight with a broken wrist. I didn’t let [my coaches] know. I was going through a bad time in my own family. And when I say family, yes, it’s only my brother and sister. But still, that’s all I have and it’s all I ever have had, but we kind of fell off track a little bit. That hurt me very bad in the sense of never arriving. I was in the locker room and, first time ever, Coach Danny asks me, ‘How you doing, Vic? You ready?’ And I said, ‘Well, what can we do? We’re here.’ ”
It was with that mindset that Ortiz went on to fight a murderous puncher in front of a national television audience. He was young, inexperienced and with personal problems nagging at him, and in the middle of a violent slugfest, he made a decision he regrets.
He rectified that by getting off the deck twice against Berto and fighting with a resolve few new he possessed.
“The Berto fight proved it all, that he could go down and get back up and go down again and get back up again,” promoter Oscar De La Hoya said. “I think that’s why [the talk of the Maidana fight] gets under his skin a little bit, because that’s the past and Victor is a guy who looks forward.”
And so, Ortiz goes through his obligations solemnly, chiding the media for giving up on him and insisting he’s not bothered by Mayweather’s antics or overcome by the moment.
He’s ready, he insisted, regardless of what anyone thinks or says.
“He happens to be a person who likes to talk,” Ortiz said of Mayweather. “But assassinations are quiet.”
Ortiz beamed. This is a guy who has literally been through hell. A few acerbic jabs aren’t going to bother him.
He understands what he’s up against, but he wonders if Mayweather realizes the same.
“I’m in a great place [mentally],” Ortiz said. “Mayweather’s had his run and he’s done his thing for many years. Forty one have tried and 41 have failed, but 41 of those were not me. He said he’s the champ for 10 years, but I’m taking the torch whether he likes it or not. I have nothing to lose, man.”
Ortiz lost everything years ago. The feeling of loss, of abandonment, of disappointment has never left him, but he overcame it to finally make it to his sport’s biggest stage.
Floyd Mayweather and his 41-0 record are only the latest hurdles he has to climb. He’s a 6-1 underdog, but the odds were more than 6-1 against him surviving his troubled childhood.
After surviving that experience, Victor Ortiz is proof that nothing is impossible.
LAS VEGAS – Victor Ortiz was staring at the floor, speaking dispassionately, rarely making eye contact, when someone mentioned that fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena could be a life-changing event.
The dashing 24-year-old with the dazzling smile lifted his head, locked his eyes on a man across from him and smirked.
“Life-changing event? This? You think for a guy like me, a guy who has been through what I’ve been through, that this is a life changing event?” Ortiz asked. “Try living in my shoes for a while and see if you think a fight is a life-changing event. My life changed years ago, bro.”
Ortiz’s life changed in unimaginable ways at an age when most of his peers still believed in Santa Claus. When he was just seven years old, his mother abandoned him.
“There one minute, gone the next,” Ortiz said with a shake of the head.
A few years later, his father skipped as well, leaving his three young children to fend for themselves. He grew up in Garden City, Kan., essentially on his own. He learned early on how cruel life could be, but the experience also proved something to him, a trait that is essential for a boxer.
The soft-spoken boy who sang in the school choir and played in piano recitals discovered a determination and an inner toughness that belied his cherubic face. He was a survivor. Life might knock him down, but as much as it hurt deep inside, he kept getting up and fighting back.
The biggest fight of his life was making it to his 16th birthday.
To Ortiz, a fight for the World Boxing Council welterweight title against the 41-0 Mayweather, who is – along with Manny Pacquiao – one of the two biggest stars in boxing, is not all that intimidating. It is, he has repeatedly insisted, simply another day at the office.
Mayweather is masterful at playing mind games with his opponents, perhaps better at that than he is in the ring, where he has fashioned a reputation not only as the top boxer of his era but also as one of the great fighters ever.
He hasn’t missed an opportunity to taunt Ortiz. At Wednesday’s news conference in the Hollywood Theatre at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, Mayweather said he had invited Robert Garcia, Ortiz’s estranged ex-trainer, and World Boxing Association lightweight champion Brandon Rios, Ortiz’s one-time friend and now bitter enemy, to attend Saturday’s fight as his guest.
Mayweather said he might ask Garcia and Rios to walk to the ring with him. Robert Garcia, whose older brother, Danny, now trains Ortiz, said he and Rios would accept Mayweather’s offer to at least attend the fight, even if they likely won’t walk him to the ring.
The stunt raised a lot of eyebrows, but it just got a shrug from Ortiz.
“It doesn’t bother me, because I’m a tree stump,” Ortiz said. “He can say whatever he wants.”
Ortiz is 29-2-2 and coming off an exceptional win over Andre Berto on April 16 that earned him the WBC title. Ortiz put Berto down twice in the fight, which isn’t a surprise considering that Ortiz has knocked down every opponent he has faced at least once.
Perhaps more significant in that fight, though, was that Berto knocked Ortiz down twice. Each time, Ortiz pulled himself off the canvas and jumped back into the battle, ratcheting up his intensity and fighting even harder.
It was a defining moment in his career because, less than two years earlier in Los Angeles in a bout against Marcos Maidana, Ortiz quit in the sixth round. Afterward, he told HBO’s Max Kellerman in the ring, “I’m young, but I don’t think I deserve to get beaten up like this.”
That comment has, in many ways, defined his career, even though it came only seconds after a heated battle against one of boxing’s most powerful punchers had ended. Ortiz likely had a concussion and says now he has no memories of the bout.
Yet, his decision to wave the white flag, perhaps the only time in his life he has ever quit at anything, has haunted him ever since.
Before a recent training session at his gym in the shadow of the famed Las Vegas Strip, Mayweather paced outside his ring, bellowing, “Once a quitter, always a quitter! He quit once and he’ll do it again.”
Ortiz has heard it all so many times, he’s become numb to it. There was a lot that went into that fight that has hasn’t felt compelled to share in his defense.
“It was super overplayed because I never arrived mentally,” Ortiz said of his decision to quit against Maidana. “My coaches thought I was fine [but] I never once told them I broke my wrist two weeks before the fight. They didn’t know it. My buddies happened to be doctors, and I won’t mention any names due to they could get in trouble, but I went to my buddies and illegally, I shot myself with cortisone.
“I went into the fight with a broken wrist. I didn’t let [my coaches] know. I was going through a bad time in my own family. And when I say family, yes, it’s only my brother and sister. But still, that’s all I have and it’s all I ever have had, but we kind of fell off track a little bit. That hurt me very bad in the sense of never arriving. I was in the locker room and, first time ever, Coach Danny asks me, ‘How you doing, Vic? You ready?’ And I said, ‘Well, what can we do? We’re here.’ ”
It was with that mindset that Ortiz went on to fight a murderous puncher in front of a national television audience. He was young, inexperienced and with personal problems nagging at him, and in the middle of a violent slugfest, he made a decision he regrets.
He rectified that by getting off the deck twice against Berto and fighting with a resolve few new he possessed.
“The Berto fight proved it all, that he could go down and get back up and go down again and get back up again,” promoter Oscar De La Hoya said. “I think that’s why [the talk of the Maidana fight] gets under his skin a little bit, because that’s the past and Victor is a guy who looks forward.”
And so, Ortiz goes through his obligations solemnly, chiding the media for giving up on him and insisting he’s not bothered by Mayweather’s antics or overcome by the moment.
He’s ready, he insisted, regardless of what anyone thinks or says.
“He happens to be a person who likes to talk,” Ortiz said of Mayweather. “But assassinations are quiet.”
Ortiz beamed. This is a guy who has literally been through hell. A few acerbic jabs aren’t going to bother him.
He understands what he’s up against, but he wonders if Mayweather realizes the same.
“I’m in a great place [mentally],” Ortiz said. “Mayweather’s had his run and he’s done his thing for many years. Forty one have tried and 41 have failed, but 41 of those were not me. He said he’s the champ for 10 years, but I’m taking the torch whether he likes it or not. I have nothing to lose, man.”
Ortiz lost everything years ago. The feeling of loss, of abandonment, of disappointment has never left him, but he overcame it to finally make it to his sport’s biggest stage.
Floyd Mayweather and his 41-0 record are only the latest hurdles he has to climb. He’s a 6-1 underdog, but the odds were more than 6-1 against him surviving his troubled childhood.
After surviving that experience, Victor Ortiz is proof that nothing is impossible.
