Floyd Mayweather Sr and Amir Khan Defend Mayweather Knockout of Victor Ortiz

TMZ caught up with Floyd Mayweather Sr, the once-again-estranged father of superstar fighter Floyd Mayweather Jr, and despite their incredible recent differences, the father says the son did nothing wrong in his controversial knockout of Victor Ortiz on Saturday night:

"First of all, Ortiz headbutted Floyd and that was obviously intentional. If you re-watch the fight, you can see that right after they apologize to one another, the ref OK's them to fight."

"Floyd did the right thing -- the number one thing they will tell you in fighting is to ALWAYS protect yourself ... The way Floyd ended the fight was 100% fair."

I think this is actually what most people are saying at this point, or at least most rational people. The argument now isn't whether or not it was fair or legal, because by the book it was legal, and thus in its most base way, it was fair.

The question is more ethical, I guess. Should Floyd have taken advantage of a fighter who clearly was not paying attention? Was the bad sportsmanship itself (and it was bad sportsmanship without question) a big enough reason to rage over what happened? I don't think it is, but then I'm not as high on "sportsmanship" as some people. I'm just not. This isn't Little League.

Here's what Amir Khan said to RingTV.com:

"[E]ven when he was hit with the first shot, the left hook, you could see Ortiz looking over at the referee -- maybe thinking it was a foul and that he hadn‘t said, ‘box on' -- whereas really his hands should have gone straight up and he should have defended himself.

"Just before the knockout, Ortiz went in with his head. The reason he did that was because he was frustrated at not getting through the defenses of Mayweather. He had to try and hit him somehow. In a way, I think that's when Mayweather thought, 'right, this is fight night and, you know what, I am going to teach this kid a lesson'."

Khan may well be Mayweather's next opponent, should the British fighter get past Lamont Peterson on December 10. He intends to move up to welterweight after that, and Mayweather vs Khan has already been discussed by both sides, with heavy interest each way.