Floyd Mayweather played the role of an agent provocateur quite perfectly on the night of September 17, 2011, at the MGM Grand in Nevada. He taught Victor Ortiz a valuable lesson that day: “In the ring, you have to protect yourself at all times.” An unaware Ortiz was caught with a left hook and a right hand from Floyd in the fourth round, and it was curtains for him as he tasted the canvas. However, what started the chain reaction that led to the boxer’s downfall on that fateful night?

After being dominated in the first three rounds by Mayweather, Ortiz found some luck in the fourth round as he landed a few shots on Mayweather and backed him into a corner. But then came the infamous headbutt from Ortiz out of nowhere, which snowballed into his KO loss. In a recent interview with Vlad TV, “Vicious” revealed that the headbutt wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction. It was a pre-meditated attack, encouraged by his team based on prior provocations by the 50-pounder himself.

A headbutt for your elbow!

In a recent conversation with the Ukrainian American journalist DJ Vlad, the 37-year-old American boxer revealed that Floyd was hitting him with illegal elbow shots throughout the fight. At one point in the fight, Floyd caught him with his elbow, which “closed” his “leading eye.” “He throws a hook; where the hook comes in, he doesn’t land the hook, but he lands the elbow. And I’m left-handed, so it’s my leading eye, so he closed my eye,” he said.

Although Ortiz complained to the referee about the illegal blows to the face, the referee allegedly let Mayweather off with a light warning. “Keep it clean, Floyd,” the former welterweight champion mimicked the referee as saying. In between rounds, Ortiz allegedly complained to his corner about his injured eye. “I had told my corner over and over again that he was hurting my eye. It’s closed; it’s shut, so I was seeing double out of one eye. It was weird, and then it went black—just black,” he told DJ Vlad.

So much so, that the Kansas-born boxer was worried that he was going “blind.” Frustrated that the referee wasn’t penalizing Mayweather for his illegal shots, Ortiz was told by his team to headbutt Mayweather before he went into action for the fourth round.

“Headbutt him; if you give him a headbutt, take a point; it is what it is,” Ortiz repeated his corner’s instruction to the interviewer. Thus, as Ortiz pressured Mayweather against the ropes in the fourth round, he did what he was told—an intentional headbutt, which led to him being penalized a point for his foul.

However, what happened afterward was a cardinal sin committed by Ortiz, which led to his losing the WBC title.

Was it sportsmanlike from Floyd?

Following Ortiz’s headbutt in the fourth round, referee Joe Cortez called a timeout and penalized Ortiz for the foul. Realizing his mistake, Ortiz hugged Mayweather, who had a cut on his mouth due to the illegal move. Thereafter, the referee asked both fighters to resume action.

The two fighters touched gloves, and then Floyd returned another hug to Ortiz. But, as both boxers disengaged from the hug, Ortiz was looking away from Mayweather for a brief moment. Sensing an opportunity to finish the fight, the 50-0 fighter hit Ortiz with a left hook, followed by a right-hand flush to his face, dropping him to the canvas. Ortiz was unable to beat the eight count, and Mayweather emerged victorious.

Following the fight, in the in-ring interview, Floyd stated, “We touched gloves, and we were back to fighting, and then I threw the left hook and right hand after the break. You just have to protect yourself at all times.” 

Thus, Floyd gave boxing yet another memorable night that was etched in boxing’s history. Do you agree with Floyd’s comments after the conclusion of the Ortiz fight? Let us know in the comment section below.