Fighting for the first time in 15 months, former welterweight world title holder Victor Ortiz (32-6-2, 25 KOs) destroyed journeyman Saul Corral (25-10, 16 KOs) in the 4th round of a scheduled 10 round fight on Sunday night on Premier Boxing Champions on FS1 at the Robobank Theater in Bakersfield, California.
Ortiz, 30, knocked Corral down with a big left hand to the head in the 4th. The badly hurt Corral got back to his feet, looking shaky and with a slightly injured ankle. After the action resumed, Ortiz landed three big shots to the head that knocked Corral into the ropes. At that point, referee Jack Reiss stepped in and stopped the fight to save Corral from getting knocked unconscious.
The official time of the stoppage was at 1:26 of round 4. It was a good stoppage. Corral, 30, was defenseless and could have been badly hurt if the fight had gone on for a few more punches from Ortiz.
In round 3, Corral was deducted 1 point for excessive holding. He was clamping down on the left arm of Ortiz to keep him from getting his shots off. The referee Reiss had warned Corral on 4 other occasions to stop holding. Corral was just trying to survive, and he needed to try every trick in the book to slow Ortiz down from throwing his big power shots.
The southpaw Ortiz came out fast in round 1, hitting Corral with some monstrous left hands to the head on the inside. Corral looked like he wasn’t ready for the kind of power that Ortiz was hitting him with. The shots were huge and constant from Ortiz, who focused on staying in close instead of fighting on the outside like he’d one in the past. Corral landed a nice uppercut during the round that snapped Ortiz’s head back. Corral didn’t have the power to hurt Ortiz though.
In round 2, Ortiz stunned Corral with a big left to the head. Corral took the shot well, and continued to fight hard. It was clear though that Corral wasn’t going to last long given how hard Ortiz was hitting him.
At the start of round 3, Ortiz hit Corral with two big jabs to the head that snapped his head back. The boxing fans at ringside cheered Ortiz. They were clearly impressed by the jabs.
Corral didn’t have the punching power to keep Ortiz off of him. Ortiz was able to go right after Corral in each round, as he didn’t have to worry about getting hit back with anything big.
The loss for Corral was his 3rd in his last 5 fights. He was beaten by Josesito Lopez by a 10 round unanimous decision earlier this year on April 9. Lopez hit Corral with everything but the kitchen sink, but he couldn’t get him out of there. It was pretty impressive to see Ortiz easily stop Corral. In the past, Ortiz was beaten by Lopez by a 9th round injury stoppage on June 23, 2012.
Ortiz suffered a broken jaw in that fight, and he chose to quit on his stool after the 9th. It would be interesting to see how well Ortiz would do against Lopez right now. Lopez isn’t the same fighter now compared to back then. Ortiz would likely be far too much for Lopez at this point in his career. Corral has also been beaten by Sadam Ali and Mike Alvarado in the past year. Alvarado was able to stop Corral in the 3rd round on March 19, 2016.
All in all, this was a great performance from Ortiz. This was the best I’ve seen from Ortiz since his win over Andre Berto on April 16, 2011. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long since Ortiz put in a great performance. Ortiz has been doing a lot of acting over the years, and his head hasn’t been fully on boxing like it is now. Ortiz is now taking a break from acting, and he wants to put his focus on his boxing career. With the new dedication to the sport, Ortiz looked sensational.
Ortiz’s punching power, hand speed and inside fighting ability would make him a threat to beating anyone in the welterweight division right now. If Ortiz can fight like this against the big names like Errol Spence, Danny Garcia, Jeff Horn and Keith Thurman, he would have a big chance of beating them. The question with Ortiz is whether his chin will hold up when he faces the quality welterweights.
There’s never been anything wrong with Ortiz’s punching power, boxing skills and hand speed. He’s top rate in all of those areas. The thing that has stopped Ortiz from getting back to the top is his chin has betrayed him in defeats to Mayweather, Collazo and Berto. If Ortiz can use his boxing ability when he does eventually step it up again, he’d have a good chance of beating the top fighters. But he’s obviously got to focus on his defense when facing better quality fighters, because he doesn’t possess the punch resistance for him to take big power shots from good fighters.
Ortiz is interested in fighting a third fight with Andre Berto, who beat him last year by a 4th round knockout. Ortiz would be a real nightmare for Berto if he fought the way he did tonight. Ortiz is also interested in fighting a rematch with Luis Collazo. Ortiz was knocked out in the 2nd round by Collazo on January 30, 2014. That’s another fighter that Ortiz would give problems to if he could get another fight against him. Ortiz wants to try one last time to win another welterweight world title after having his progress halted with losses to Andre Berto, Collazo and Lopez.
Ortiz briefly held the WBC welterweight title after defeating Berto by an exciting 12 round unanimous decision on April 16, 2011. However, in Ortiz’s first defense of his WBC title against Floyd Mayweather Jr. on September 17, 2011, he was stopped in the 4th round. Mayweather hit Ortiz with a 1-2 combination in round 4 to knock him down. Ortiz was too hurt to continue. It was a controversial knockout, because Ortiz had just apologized to Mayweather for head-butting him in the round. Ortiz hugged Mayweather to apologize. When Ortiz was pulling back from hugging Mayweather, he was clobbered with a left-right combination that put him on the canvas. It an unsportsmanlike move by Mayweather, but the referee Joe Cortez didn’t see the shots land.
