Arthur Abraham knocked Mahir Oral down five times to retain his IBF middleweight title, but Marcos Maidana's stoppage of Victor Ortiz was the story of the night. (via d.yimg.com)

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Marcos Maidana stopped Victor Ortiz in the sixth round of a junior welterweight war, but the biggest story of the night may have come from Ortiz's post-fight interview.

After essentially quitting in the sixth round, Ortiz said in his post-fight interview that he had "a lot of thinking to do" about his future, and pretty much seemed to give the impression that he doesn't love boxing and isn't up for getting hit the way he was tonight. Many guys have come up fast without much resistance, and then break down once they find that guy that hits back, hits hard, and tests their mettle. I don't want to speak to his future absolutely or anything, but if I were a betting man, Victor Ortiz is never going to be the fighter Golden Boy wanted him to be. I just don't think he has it in him. I don't say that to be disrespectful -- anyone that heard that interview would have to have the same questions. He put them out there.

The fight itself was a Fight of the Year contender, with both men dropped in the first round and Maidana down twice more in the second. The Argentinian Maidana (26-1, 25 KO) stormed back to drop Ortiz in the sixth, after which Ortiz gave up, went to the doctor, and they quickly called it off with a cut bleeding pretty well and his opposite eye swelling shut.

Ortiz (24-2-1, 19 KO) really does have a lot of thinking to do. He also noted that he's "not going out on his back for nobody," which received a few scattered boos. Not exactly warrior talk to say the least.

If you missed the fight, do catch a replay this week on HBO.

On Showtime from Germany, Arthur Abraham knocked down Mahir Oral five times, three in the tenth round, at which point the Oral corner stopped the bout. Oral fought and fought, and came forward, and never ran, but he was simply outgunned by a better, stronger fighter.

Results from the Top Rank PPV in Atlantic City:

• Juan Manuel Lopez RTD-9 Olivier Lontchi ... Called an ugly fight.
  
• Jorge Arce KO-3 Fernando Lumacad
• Yuri Foreman NC-3 Cornelius Bundrage, fight stopped on a headbutt cut
• Vanes Martirosyan RTD-6 Andrey Tsurkan; Martirosyan reportedly gave Tsurkan an awful beating
• Off-TV results: Mario Santiago UD-8 Gilberto Sanchez Leon ... Matt Korobov KO-1 Benjamin Diaz

We will have a lot more tomorrow on Victor Ortiz and Marcos Maidana in particular. This is a pretty interesting developing story to say the least.

Tonight's round-by-round coverage starts with Abraham-Oral on Showtime at 9pm and continues with Ortiz-Maidana on HBO at 10pm.

DO NOT POST SPOILERS OF THE ABRAHAM-ORAL FIGHT.

via www.fightnews.com

via www.notifight.com

Victor Ortiz looks to continue his climb up the 140-pound ranks against Marcos Maidana tonight on HBO.

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Neither of this weekend's fights being offered on major American TV are really big enough to go into our running picks competition, but both are more than worth discussion.

First off, Showtime will bring us a middleweight title fight on tape delay from Germany. IBF titlist Arthur Abraham is considered by some to be the world's top 160-pound fighter, not world champion Kelly Pavlik, and he faces yet another fairly soft touch when he takes on unknown Mahir Oral. The fight is live at 3 ET, but Showtime won't have it on our TVs until nine, so no spoilers tomorrow.

As much as I like and respect Abraham, and feel he's a tremendous fighter with some good wins, fights like this one and his last with Lajuan Simon are really no better than what Universum does with Felix Sturm. If Sturm is going to get the business for it, so should King Arthur, who likely will fight Giovanni Lorenzo next. I'm also not taking a shot at Abraham, but it appears more often that Sturm and Pavlik get grief for their competition, while Abraham rarely takes any guff whatsoever. They're all doing more or less the same thing: Dominating an empty division on their own terms and not fighting each other. If Pavlik-Sturm goes forward (tentatively scheduled for October 3, and not even close to a sure thing), I'll be pleasantly shocked.

If you've never seen Oral, here's the final part of his last fight, a win over Alexander Sipos:

It's not that I'm claiming to be a scout or anything, but watching this entire fight from last November, I see nothing about Oral that will give Abraham real trouble. Arthur will plod, play defense, and strike when he needs to. I don't know that he'll stop him, because some nights Abraham just doesn't ever go into a stopping gear, but he'll beat him convincingly.

On HBO at 10pm, Victor Ortiz matches up with dangerous Marcos Maidana. Maidana's a really good puncher, and his KO rate attests to that. He gave titlist Andriy Kotelnik (Ortiz's original opponent) all he could handle his last time out:

If you look at how Maidana fights and compare it to Ortiz, you can see trouble ahead for either man. Ortiz is a golden child sort of prospect, and a loss to Maidana would short-term ruin future plans that Golden Boy and HBO have for him. But I think he's probably just too fast for Maidana, and as aloof and surfer dude-ish as Ortiz is in interviews, he's a nasty finisher that knows how to go in for the kill. I don't see this one making it to the cards.

The Top Rank PPV from Atlantic City is headlined by Juan Manuel Lopez, who ought to flat-out demolish Olivier Lontchi. The best fight of that show might be Vanes Martirosyan versus Andrey Tsurkan, which should be your usual Tsurkan fight where Andrey shows lots of heart and guts but is seriously out of his league. That's $40 I'm keeping in my wallet. Yuri Foreman-Cornelius Bundrage might require viewers to set their alarm clocks for roughly 45 minutes after the first bell. Actually, if Jorge Arce is as shot as he's looked, his fight with Fernando Lumacad might turn into a war.

Elsewhere On Saturday: Jorge Linares returns against Josafat Perez ... Daud Yordan, who impressed many in his too-short no-contest against Robert Guerrero, fights in Indonesia ... Craig McEwan is on the untelevised HBO undercard, as is prospect Adrien Broner, who faces Willie Kickett.

Mahir Oral and his lion fist will be coming to Showtime on June 27 when he challenges IBF middleweight titlist Arthur Abraham. (via www.notifight.com)

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June 27 just became a busier night for American boxing fans as far as televised fights go, as Showtime just moments ago ran a graphic saying they'd picked up the IBF middleweight title fight between Arthur Abraham and Mahir Oral in Berlin. This makes for three cards available for fight fans that night: Abraham-Oral on Showtime, HBO Boxing After Dark with Ortiz-Maidana and John-Juarez II, and the Top Rank PPV headlined by Juan Manuel Lopez.

• David Tua has changed his nickname again: "The Tuaminator." It sounds clumsy and is absolutely non-news considering Tua is irrelevant, but he has his long-delayed grudge match with fellow New Zealander Shane Cameron approaching, and I thought it'd be nice to mention it.
• Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko are going to talk to their mom and see if it'd be OK for them to fight. Good quote: "Of course she would not be happy and if we did fight I would be very worried about the health of my brother because it would be very bloody and very bad. We are very competitive and it would be for real. There would be no fix."
• Update (11:48 PM ET): Andrei Arlovski, whose pro boxing debut was supposed to be in a few weeks, was just knocked out in mere seconds by Brett Rogers at Strike Force. Going into pro boxing is probably a horrible idea for him, but at the same time he's losing his name in MMA pretty rapidly right now.