Updated June 24, 2012
Unheralded
Josesito Lopez never considered himself a stepping stone after moving up from junior welterweight to replace
Andre Berto, who failed a drug test, to face former WBC welterweight champ
Victor Ortiz ... and he certainly didn't fight like one. Ortiz needed a win to advance to a big money pay-per-view match with WBC junior middleweight champ
Saul Alvarez on September 15. Instead, Alvarez will once again be looking for a new opponent (
Paul Williams and
James Kirkland were previous candidates for the match).
Lopez fought hard in round after round but - after nine rounds - was behind on all three cards (88-83, 87-74, 86-85) and his left eye was swelling shut. He had connected with numerous power punches but was outlanded overall (147-122) and seemed unable to hurt the bigger - and heavily muscled - Ortiz. However, late in round nine, Lopez caught Ortiz with a left hook that was apparently far more damaging that it initially appeared. Shockingly, as round ten was about to begin, Ortiz told referee Jack Reiss that his jaw was broken and that he was not going to continue. After the fight, Ortiz said his corned urged him to continue but he was unable to close his month. It's difficult to criticize a fighter for electing not to fight with a broken jaw ... but every boxing fan remembers fighters - such as Muhammad Ali and Arthur Abraham - that continued to fight - and win - after suffering broken jaws.
The ending of the bout was reminiscent of 2009 when Ortiz - ahead on points - quit on his stool against Marcos Maidana after six knockdown-filled rounds. This fight also included another Ortiz trademark -- a controversial foul. In the biggest bout of his career, Ortiz was stopped shortly after intentionally head butting Floyd Mayweather. This time, Ortiz hit Lopez with a rabbit punch in the back of the neck in round five. Fortunately, Lopez was able to continue and - like Mayweather - went on to stop Ortiz.
The shocking result was one of the biggest upsets in recent memory ... and - combined with the co-feature in which Lucas Matthysse stopped Humberto Soto in the fifth round of all-action light welterweight slugfest - capped a much needed good night for the sport of boxing. Why was it so good? Largely because neither of the main events required judges. There's nothing wrong with boxing that can't be solved by knockouts. KOs (and TKOs) do the only thing the sport needs to thrive ... render judges, promoters and sanctioning bodies irrelevant. All hail the knockout!
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