a scared boy being chased by a man
Being a big boxing fan, I used to have a notebook with my own scorecards of bouts I watched on tv. Thank Jesus I can’t find it since I’d hate to have actual paper trail of how I spent my Saturday nights…and some Tuesday and Friday nights. But boxing isn’t called ‘the sweet science’ for nuthin…the precision, the physical demands, the mental acuity…all of these things come into play in a sport that can end in a flash.
Anyway, as some general sports followers may know, the past Saturday night featured a match between Floyd Mayweather and Victor Ortiz. I’ve seen plenty of Mayweather fights, and maybe two of Ortiz. The advanced word was that Ortiz was a long shot, but Mayweather haters (which pretty much includes the entire HBO announcing crew), were all either loudly or secretly hoping that Ortiz would pull a miracle out of his ass and put an ignominious end to Mayweather’s career.
Well, that’s not what happened.
Having watched countless boxing matches, I saw something that I had never seen…like, ever. Hope you’re asking, “what?” ‘cuz I’m about to tell you: I have never seen anyone get so scared, so quickly, and become so desperate and so weird as Ortiz. After being on the shit end of a string of Mayweather’s right hand punches in the third round, Ortiz became so afraid of being hit, that in the the fourth round, one of the first things he did was to jump and headbutt his opponent. Now, Mayweather wasn’t unleashing a flurry of combos. Rather, in an expected move, he punched, moved back, set, and punched again. It was methodical and safe as it should have been. No self-respecting 34 year old champion boxer is going to go out there with his arms swinging and chin hanging. I don’t know what Ortiz was expecting, but he acted like he’d never been squared up by right hook before, and the kid ran. And when he couldn’t run, he got scared and confused, and out of desperation, Ortiz started to wail like a firecracker that spins maniacally on the ground, flaring off different colors in all directions. Then, when he realized that he was only landing glancing blows, he went back to Desperation Move, No. 1: the cannonballing headbutt.
When the ref called time to deduct a point, Ortiz walked up to Mayweather (again, something I’d never seen in boxing), and then kissed him on the cheek (now, that was just straight up odd). Perplexed and certainly not amused, Mayweather decided to end Ortiz’s unpredictability by slapping him with a left (and believe me, it was a humiliating blow for Ortiz), and then the right came across and snapped Ortiz’s head, dropping his weird, nearly pathetic ass to the ground. And as I expected, when Ortiz finally sat up, he smiled like it was all a funny fucking joke. Call it a cheapshot, but I’m with Mayweather on this one. It may have been bad sportsmanship, but Ortiz did everything but to verbally ask for it.
I hope I never get as scared as Ortiz was. Even if I do, I certainly hope I hide it better.
