According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, Former welterweight champion Victor Ortiz had surgery to fix a broken jaw that he suffered in his surprising ninth round loss to Josesito Lopez on Saturday night in Los Angeles.
During a visit with Ortiz on Monday morning, Ortiz manager Rolando Arellano said Ortiz wrote down on a piece of paper “exercise the rematch clause” because he wants to face Lopez (30-4, 18 KOs) again, as is his contractual right, even though Ortiz likely won’t fight for the rest of this year.
“Victor broke the jaw in the fifth round. He felt a weird sensation because he couldn’t close his mouth all the way,” Arellano said. “So he was holding his glove underneath his jaw to keep it closed because it was hanging open. Victor fought four or five rounds with a broken jaw and every time he would throw punches, he would take his glove away from his jaw and it would just drop. He said every time he got hit on it, it felt like someone was slicing open his body it hurt so much. He didn’t know what was going on.”
Arellano said Ortiz eventually began to gag on “thick blood in his mouth. The doctors said it was extremely dangerous because he had internal bleeding, which they said they could tell by the thickness of the blood. This was a lot more serious than anyone anticipated at first when we just thought he had a broken jaw.”
“Of course, we want the rematch, just like Victor wrote down for me, but I just want to make sure this young man is OK,” Arellano said. “It was an exciting fight and we were winning but it was just one of those things that happen in boxing. It’s always unpredictable.
“Victor was down because the injury happened, but this is part of the sport. We know that we live by the sword and die by the sword, and we can’t stand here and cry about it. You lick your wounds and move forward.”
