Back to the desert

They were trying too hard, weren’t they? Victor Ortiz was handsome enough, not gorgeous. He was well-spoken, not eloquent. He was a standout amateur, not an Olympic gold medalist. He was a good project, not a finished product.

Yet Golden Boy Promotions’ frenzied search for its next Golden Boy made him The One.

The HBO/GBP co-promotional machine was cranked up. Features were done. Camera crews visited hometowns. The future of boxing would fill Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. “Boxing After Dark” would be Ortiz’s stage while “World Championship Boxing” impatiently waited. And Argentinean Marcos Maidana would be the victim.

Except that he wouldn’t be. Maidana would not relent or say his scripted lines and exit stage left. He was the only variable in the whole production, and he ruined the whole production. He also turned Ortiz into the latest reminder that, for all its enthusiasm, Golden Boy Promotions still does not spot or develop talent as well as it does everything else.

Maidana brought the Ortiz bandwagon to a grinding halt Saturday by rising from the mat thrice and making Ortiz want to be anywhere but in a boxing ring with him. He cut Ortiz with a left hook in round five and sent him back to a corner where his trainer threatened to stop the fight. Then Maidana beat Ortiz to a head-shaking end when referee Raul Caiz, Sr. took the doctor’s advice – and Ortiz’s demeanor – and awarded Maidana a TKO victory at 0:46 of the sixth.

Now, back to the desert 30 months ago. Victor Ortiz and Juan Manuel Lopez shared a ShoBox telecast at Dodge Theater in downtown Phoenix. At the weigh-in they posed for photos together and were called “Top Rank’s Next 1-2 Punch.” That Friday, a first-round collision of heads took Ortiz to a no-decision that was forgotten because “JuanMa” looked so damn good in the main event.

Sometime later, Ortiz filed for bankruptcy and left Top Rank for Golden Boy. Lopez, meanwhile, was developed into a ticket seller and then a world champion and then the future of boxing under 130 pounds. Saturday night, Lopez made the fourth defense of his WBO super bantamweight title in Atlantic City – right about the time Ortiz was openly questioning his future in the sport.

Want to know the real tragedy in all this? Victor Ortiz is even more likable in real life than he’s been made to look in recent “interviews.” After meeting him in Phoenix, I shared a 15-minute bus ride with him to the Alamodome in April of 2007. He was genuine, talkative and opinionated. As recently as Friday night, I was still saying great things about him.

But by the time Saturday’s fight actually started – after the feature film, Michael Jackson tribute and uncomfortable overuse of the word “thrill” during Ortiz’s ringwalk – I wasn’t at all opposed to a Marcos Maidana upset. Anyone else feel that way?

Let that be a warning to the next One, Daniel “Golden Child” Jacobs. Before he becomes Victor Ortiz East, Jacobs should look at the way he is being developed and marketed. Jacobs has good tools and lots of charisma. But he and his handlers need to be patient. Prizefighting, after all, is a brutal hustle.

Jacobs topped the Desert Diamond Casino marquee in Tucson, Friday. Despite being named the Golden Child and reporting to the Golden Boy, Jacobs has one intangible De La Hoya never had: An ability to relax during combat. Jacobs never seems flustered. Everyone at ringside, including Jacobs’ opponent – the game and personable George Walton – admired Jacobs’ calm.

But why was a Brooklyn middleweight headlining a card 90 kilometers from Mexico? Why, for that matter, has Jacobs made only four of 17 prizefights east of the Mississippi River – with half coming in Illinois?

Something about building a national figure. Well. That’s the way advertising consultants imagine the world. Fight promoters should know better. Has nothing been learned from the Williams-Wright and Dawson-Tarver gates?

There’s a reason I know the distance from Tucson to Mexico in kilometers: That’s how the signs are written on I-19. And yet, not one Mexican national was on Friday’s card. We had two New Yorkers, a Texan, a Michigander, an Alabaman, two Tennesseans, a Floridian and a Marylander. Three fighters, of 16, were from Arizona. And not one was there to interest the hundreds of fans that reliably made the trek from Sonora.

Our state has a novel immigration law and issues with P1 visas – as Norm Frauenheim reported Friday – but every promoter already knows this when it comes to Arizona to collect a casino site fee. Promoters that ignore local interest do so at their own peril.

Back to the Victor Ortiz incident. Staples Center looked nearly full. It sounded empty. That might have been television’s acoustics. The fight was excellent. There were five knockdowns. Both guys bled. Both guys showed the hit-back instinct. But Marcos Maidana was clearly the tougher individual.

Afterwards, Ortiz switched from “Vicious Victor” of Oxnard to a surfer dude from Malibu. Even before he uttered the words that will likely mark his next few years of prizefighting – “I’m not going out on my back” – he was, well, goofy. He asked HBO analyst Max Kellerman how things were going.

Then he described his immediate thoughts after the fifth-round cut thusly: “Wowwww, heh heh, that was pretty crazy.”

With Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer over his shoulder, Ortiz said he wanted to quit while he was still ahead and could form complete sentences. Then he said he didn’t deserve to be beaten up and had a lot of thinking to do about his future.

Good luck to you, Victor, whatever you decide.

Better luck, still, to Golden Boy Promotions. Repackaging what happened Saturday won’t be easy.

Bart Barry can be reached at bbarry@15rounds.com