It’s popular these days to rip Victor Ortiz. It’s also a little too easy, perhaps because his quick mix of honesty and anger create a convenient target. The heart is always there, on Ortiz’ sleeve and never hidden beneath layers and loopholes. But it’s the heart that’s under attack. The critics say Ortiz doesn’t have one.
In our playground full of clichés, heart has been confused with courage. For anybody who forgot or just didn’t know, Ortiz, battered as a child in a broken home, became the legal guardian for a younger brother. That’s heart, the kind that many of our celebrated winners could use a lot more of.
Photo by Claudia Bocanegra
So, please, don’t question Ortiz’ heart. It’s proven. But you can question his focus. That’s the issue Saturday night in his welterweight date with unbeaten Andre Berto in a HBO bout at The Foxwoods in Connecticut. Talented and powerful, Ortiz’ resume is tarnished with two fights that leave questions about whether he can fight, adjust and endure long enough to prevail in the face of a tough challenge
He didn’t against Marcos Maidana, whom he knocked down three times before his infamous surrender in the sixth about a year-and-half ago at Staples Center in Los Angeles. About 18 months later in a troublesome moment that led critics to recall his loss to Maidana, he seemed to settle for a majority draw in December after knocking down Lamont Peterson twice in the third in Las Vegas.
In the immediate aftermath of both, Ortiz didn’t sound or appear frustrated. Only after an unrelenting tide of media criticism did he react in anger.
“I felt like a piece of gum on the bottom of someone’s shoes,’’ he said in February during a news conference in New York. “So, I said to myself: ‘It’s my turn.’
“I’m going in against some tough opposition. Andre Berto is no chump. But now I’m hungry. I’m tired of people saying I have no heart or no balls. At the end of the day, I’m not scared of getting in the ring or challenging anyone.’’
But there’s more to the task than having the courage to make that walk from the dressing room, through the crowd, up the steps, under the ropes and into harm’s way. There’s finishing the job and that’s what Ortiz has yet to do in a defining fashion. Berto gives him that opportunity.
Ortiz is armed with powerful motivation. The media have piled on, putting a massive chip on his shoulder. As motivation, it figures to drive him and make him very dangerous during the first three to four rounds. But then what?
The guess here is that Berto will be careful early and still around later. Once the anger is gone as an emotional weapon, Ortiz will have to rely and re-fashion his evident talent with adjustments. He’ll have to think his way through adversity. I don’t think he will, simply because he has yet to show that he can. Still, a part of me will be cheering for him because of the media criticism arrayed against him.
His honesty, that heart, makes him a likable underdog at a career crossroads that could either propel him to real stardom or make him as forgettable as that chewed-up piece of gum.
