Victor Ortiz on Mayweather: ‘I don’t think he’s worthy of the name champion’

Fun facts about the Floyd Mayweather-Victor Ortiz fight that I hadn’t known: 1. Ortiz claims that Mayweather was illegally hitting him with elbows, and that that’s why he gave him the headbutt; 2. Immediately after the fight, Ortiz took his girlfriend dancing at a Vegas nightclub.

Ortiz showed up for lunch at the notoriously paparazzi-infested Los Angeles restaurant The Ivy, where TMZ caught up with him and asked him a few questions on camera. Ortiz then followed that up with a visit to the TMZ studios on Thursday for a TMZ Live interview, where he discussed, among other things, the headbutt:

“I did the headbutt but only because, I told Cortez twice he used his elbow on my eyebrow, my right eyebrow. And I said, ‘Cortez! Elbow! Elbow!’ And he says ‘Fight out of it!’ And Mayweather’s smiling at me, so I said alright, ‘boom!’ “

“If he’s really as great as he thinks he is, you don’t have to be a champion like that. All you have to do is you take a step back, and if you’re as great as you think you are, OK, you take a little step back and we can settle it as actual professional athletes.”

“I don’t think he’s worthy of the name champion unless he gives me the rematch. This isn’t the way something like this is supposed to end.”

And my favorite quote:

“My background alone man was completely … I don’t think a lot of people, including our good friend Floyd, could have ever walked in the steps I walked to get to where I got. So that was a little speed bump for me, that’s all it was.”

Ortiz comes off as genuinely likeable in this interview. If he and Mayweather fought ten times, I’m not sure Ortiz would even win once; but in a public relations battle, Ortiz wins hands down. And the main thing I took from watching the replay of the knockout was that Joe Cortez, the referee, looked like a doddering old man who had no clue what was happening.

UFC president Dana White tends to agree:

Speaking with ESPN, White said “The referee [Joe Cortez] destroyed that fight. It’s easy to hate Floyd Mayweather, but Floyd didn’t do anything. He didn’t act like a thug. Floyd gets flagrantly head-butted in the face and the ref actually lets (Ortiz) walk up and grab him again after he does it,” White said, referring to the hug. (Cortez) never takes control. He never sends in a doctor to make sure Floyd is OK. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

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Victor Ortiz: Floyd Mayweather ain’t all that [TMZ]