Moments ago at in downtown Los Angeles, the second stop to the Floyd Mayweather-Victor Ortiz press conference went down, with emotions running much higher than at yesterday’s festivities in New York. Ortiz defends his WBC welterweight crown against Mayweather on September 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in a fight that has seen Floyd Jr. coming out of the gates as a nearly 8-1 betting favorite.
There was a bit of a wait at this press conference, as Mayweather is often fashionably late, yet things got a bit heated after Mayweather’s red carpet entrance in front of a jam-packed crowd. Ortiz had been on the dais waiting for Floyd’s arrival and the minute Mayweather came on stage they bumped heads and began jawing at one another.
To say there were tensions in the air would be an overstatement, however, as Mayweather could be seen either flashing a grin or looking rather bored while Ortiz and his team attempted to rile things up on stage. One constant irk that Ortiz and his crew have had in the lead up to the fight has been the fact that Mayweather has been looking past him a bit in his namedropping of Manny Pacquiao during his speeches.
Ortiz’s manager Rolando Arrellano addressed this issue, stating that on September 17th he was going to unleash a ‘Mexican pitbull’ on Mayweather inside of the ring.
“He’s not fighting Pacquiao next, he’s fighting me,” Ortiz stated. “If he wants to box, I’ll box, if he wants to bang I’ll bang. Either way I’m gonna be that pound for pound champ.”
Having been in this situation countless times against a myriad of opponents, this was nothing more than gamesmanship to Mayweather, who will be ending a sixteen-month layoff by the time he faces Ortiz.
“I go out there, execute the game plan,” stated Floyd. “That’s what I do. Right now Victor Ortiz is the champion. Him first, Pacquiao next. I have been in fights with big punchers, I don’t have to brag about what I do.”
Business as usual for Mayweather Jr. From here the two camps will break for a rigorous training camp and a well-publicized buildup to the pay-per-view event can be expected.
Source: Examiner.com
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