Jamaine Ortiz obviously would have even more trouble getting Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. and ESPN to pay for a rematch with Teofimo Lopez than the 140-pound contender had convincing the judges he beat Lopez in their 12-round title fight Thursday night.
Ortiz nonetheless wants a second shot at winning the WBO junior welterweight championship from Lopez. A disappointed Ortiz questioned the scorecards of judges Steve Weisfeld (117-111), Tim Cheatham (115-113) and David Sutherland (115-113) and campaigned for an immediate rematch in the aftermath of his unanimous-decision defeat at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas.
“The fans, the boxing fans, will know, you know?,” Ortiz told a group of reporters. “You guys know. My team knows. The world that seen the fight knows. BoxRec and history will say that he won, but hopefully we get the rematch on and I’ll make it more of a clear decision this time around.”
The unofficial punch stats submitted by CompuBox indicated Lopez-Ortiz was a very close fight, more in line with how it was scored by Cheatham and Sutherland than Weisfeld.
CompuBox credited Ortiz for two more connections overall than Lopez (80-of-409 to 78-of-364). According to CompuBox, Lopez landed six more power punches (66-of-203 to 60-of-205), whereas Ortiz connected on eight more jabs (20-of-204 to 12-of-161).
Ortiz (17-2-1, 8 KOs) understood why he lost enough rounds in the second half of his fight versus Vasiliy Lomachenko (17-3, 11 KOs) to drop a 12-round unanimous decision 15 months earlier in The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Worcester, Massachusetts native was completely perplexed, however, by this loss to Lopez (20-1, 13 KOs).
“[I’m] disturbed because I knew what I had to do from the Lomachenko fight and this fight, and finish off strong,” Ortiz said. “And I felt like I did that. I didn’t feel like Teofimo got to out-land me or, you know, hurt me at any point during the fight, or land any big shots like Lomachenko did in [that] fight in the ending of the rounds, where some rounds could’ve been swayed around. This wasn’t like that. It was a one-way fight for me.”
The 27-year-old Ortiz felt Lopez kept trying to do the same thing round after round, without making any adjustments. Lopez couldn’t cut off the ring, which made it difficult for him to catch Ortiz with flush punches while Ortiz operated only from a southpaw stance.
Lopez talked trash to Ortiz during a main event ESPN televised and tried to lure the challenger out of his game plan. Ortiz remained composed, though, and employed his safe strategy throughout a forgettable bout that lacked action.
“He just wanted to fight,” Ortiz replied when asked what Lopez said to him in the ring. “But like I said the whole week, he gets frustrated. He can’t control himself, he can’t tame himself. I’m calm. I know how to control myself, and I knew he couldn’t do that. That was the game plan, get him out of his game plan, get him frustrated and that’s exactly what it was. He was throwing wild, I was making him miss. It was part of the game plan the whole time and the game plan worked.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.