Arthur Abraham, Juan Manuel Lopez, and Marcos Maidana win by technical quit out

June 28, 10:44 AMBoxing ExaminerEric Sloan

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Boxing Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

The three "easy money fights" last night weren't as short as I originally thought. I predicted early explosive knockouts and went 0 for 3. I was right about one thing, however, in that none of the fights went the distance. All three ended with the winner receiving a TKO, but the better acronym is TQO--technical quit out.

Most of you know by now that Juan Manuel Lopez forced Olivier Lontchi to surrender after the ninth round. I didn't watch the fight, so I am going to give Lontchi the benefit of the doubt. My understanding is that Lontchi had been trying to quit before the ninth round, but his corner kept sending him out. As such, I am calling it a TQO win for JuanMa though because the fight was stopped on Lontchi's own medical diagnosis.

Arthur Abraham-Mahir Oral. Abraham took his time dismantling Oral in defense of his IBF middleweight title belt. Oral seemed to possess above average technical skill with below average power. One of the skills he lacks is how to fight a peek-a-boo style. Even though I scored the first three rounds for Oral, it was based on nothing more than the fact that I gave him credit for landing something, anything against a near zero offensive output in those rounds from Abraham.

From the fourth round on there was nothing more to be had for Oral. I have "towel" written in my notes for the 8th and 9th round. Oral was fighting back, but he was drastically out of his league and taking a lot of unnecessary punishment without any realistic hope of turning the fight around. The towel finally came in the 10th round--technical quit out, but a good TQO.

The difference here is that Oral's corner made the call. Oral would have kept going until Abraham found a way to render him unconscious for a ten-count. Huge props to Oral for bringing the pride and to his corner to recognize that pride wasn't enough to defeat the impressive champion.

As a brief aside, for you scoring junkies, if the 10th round would have been scored, it would have been a 10-6 round for Abraham.

Marcos Maidana-Victor Ortiz. Yeah, where to begin? HBO has been selling Victor Ortiz for quite some time now and I've been a steady buyer. The kid is explosive, no doubt about it, but whenever a network attempts to sell me on a fighter's background and smile, there should be a red flag festival going on inside of my head. Until last night, I had missed the fact that Victor Ortiz is just another box of soap.

Let me first step back and tell you how I scored the first round. I scored it 10-10. It was 10-8 at the time of the first knockdown (2 points for Ortiz) and Maidana recaptured 2 points after he knocked Ortiz down.  A better judge would have found a way to score it 10-9, but in my mind the round was dead even. Ortiz won the second round 10-7 for scoring two knockdowns.

Now the fight was messy and brutal. Both men landed shots, but Maidana's were stronger, faster, and more accurate. Such led to a cut over Ortiz's right eye and an Easter egg sized welt under his left. In the 6th round, after hitting the canvas, Ortiz wanted no more. "Vicious" turned his back to the referee, shook his head no in what was likely in response to a "can you continue" question, and luckily had the right fight doctor who told the referee to stop the fight. In short, he quit and HBO seemed a little put out that they had to praise Maidana.

In his post-fight interview, Ortiz talked about not wanting to take any additional Maidana-inflicted punishment and whether or not he wants to continue boxing at all. In life, Victor Ortiz's heart and determination can stand up to the best of them. In boxing, he told us that he has something substantially less.

You don't need me to tell you that boxing is a violent sport. Scars and broken bones are the norm. Blood is abundant. Eyes and lives have been lost. Hands damaged beyond repair. Arthur Abraham has fought with a broken jaw. Arturo Gatti and numerous others have fought one-handed. Miguel Cotto kept answering the bell against Joshua Clottey even though blood was pouring down his face. Joe Frazier fought blind. Need I go on?

Most of us would never last one round in such combat let alone survive the physical and mental preparation required to enter the ring at all. Nobody wants to see a boxer get hurt, but boxing, like life, is full of risks and rewards. If you're not prepared for and willing to walk through the worst, then you will never achieve the best.

I sincerely hope that we have not seen the last of Victor Ortiz because I think that immaturity and being cast into the headliner role was overwhelming. If he looks at himself in the mirror, however, and does not see the vicious version of himself looking back, then it is time to do something else.