Vergil Ortiz Jr. initially thought that Tony Weeks stopped his fight with Fredrick Lawson too soon Saturday night.
In hindsight, Ortiz realized that the veteran Nevada referee probably spared Lawson from suffering a brutal knockout defeat in their 12-round, 156-pound fight at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. Weeks has drawn intense criticism for stepping between Ortiz and Lawson and halting another match prematurely 7½ months after he strangely stopped the Rolly Romero-Ismael Barroso bout in the ninth round May 13 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
Ortiz staggered Lawson with a jab and quickly unloaded a flurry of punches as Lawson backed into the ropes with just under 40 seconds to go in the first round. An aggressive Ortiz landed four body punches, but mostly missed with his shots aimed at Lawson’s head.
A protective Weeks still stopped their bout 2:33 into the first round.
“I don’t think it was a bad stoppage,” Ortiz told a group of reporters afterward. “And as a fan, you’re gonna think so because you wanna see the knockout. Fans watch boxing to see knockouts, to see the ugly stuff. As a fighter who knew that it was like literally coming in the next few punches, and I was gonna find a way, I mean, he saved him from a bad knockout.”
The hard-hitting Ortiz (20-0, 20 KOs) sought a more convincing conclusion to his first fight in 17 months. The Grand Prairie, Texas native understands, though, that it was more important for Ghana’s Lawson (30-4, 22 KOs) to leave the ring without having suffered any permanent damage during a bout Ortiz was a 25-1 favorite to win.
“He wasn’t responding,” Ortiz said. “He just wasn’t responding and, I mean, if he’s not fighting back it’s not a fight anymore – it’s a beatdown.”
Weeks, meanwhile, remains under fire for another suspect stoppage.
The 67-year-old Weeks oddly ended the Romero-Barroso fight despite that Barroso remained on his feet, avoided most of Romero’s punches during that sequence and had just thrown a shot back at Romero when Weeks halted their 12-round, 140-pound title fight at 2:41 of the ninth round. Barroso had dropped Romero during the third round and led on the cards of judges Tim Cheatham (76-75), David Sutherland (77-74) and Steve Weisfeld (78-73) entering that fateful ninth round.
Coincidentally, Barroso beat favored British contender Ohara Davies by first-round knockout in the co-feature just before Ortiz stopped Lawson on Saturday night. Venezuela’s Barroso (25-4-2, 23 KOs) dropped Davies (25-3, 18 KOs) twice to win the WBA interim super lightweight title and secured a rematch with Romero (15-13 KOs), which is supposed to happen before March 20.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.