Bob Arum Says Victor Ortiz Wanted Out, Showed Old Mental Weaknesses Against Mayweather

Speaking with Keith Idec, Bob Arum once again criticized Saturday's fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Victor Ortiz. Of course, he did this while hawking a pro wrestling gimmick for the fight between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito, the latter a disgraced fighter he continues to happily promote.

Anyway, Arum already criticized Mayweather, saying he was "disgusted" by the fighter's low ethical standards and cheap shot knockout win, but now he's turning his attention to Ortiz:

"He just wanted to get out of there, in my opinion. That was such a flagrant foul that it was like a guy looking to get disqualified. And after what happened to him, you would expect him to arise in protest. But he’s grinning like ‘The Cheshire Cat,’ because he’s finally out of there. ... Ortiz demonstrated a lot of what he demonstrated in the Maidana fight."

While the grudge between Arum and Mayweather is well-known, some may not be aware that Ortiz was also once a Top Rank fighter who bailed on the company in far less than amicable fashion. In 2008, Ortiz filed for bankruptcy, which effectively ended his contract with Top Rank. Four months later, he signed with Golden Boy. If you want to know more about that, read Kevin Iole's Yahoo! article from January 2009.

So obviously Arum isn't exactly wild about Ortiz either, and has said before that he felt Ortiz was a mentally weak fighter. And I think it goes without saying that Arum is, in fact, right to dislike Ortiz. He invested crazy jack into him and got jammed, which made him bent.

Arum also says that an investor was set to put money "into boxing" (whatever he means by that, because it could be anything), but after the horrible Mayweather vs Ortiz fight, that's no longer the case:

"I was having a meeting [Tuesday], and I’m not going to name the company, but with a major, major sponsor that was ready to put a million dollars into boxing ... They don’t want to touch boxing after what they saw on Saturday."

A million dollars would pay a whole Miguel Cotto purse for the Ricardo Mayorga fight earlier this year.

And of course if Arum were promoting this fight, he'd be saying nice things about it and actively selling you a rematch. Yada, yada, yada.