Jamaine “The Technician” Ortiz (18-2-1, 9 KOs) returned to his winning ways with a fourth-round knockout of veteran Cristian Mino (24-10-2, 17 KOs) in a contest of ten rounds. on Friday night at the Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida.
The massive-looking Ortiz dropped Mino four times in the fight, knocking him down in every round. In the fourth, Ortiz backed Mino up against the ropes and unloaded a flurry of strikes, finishing with two left hands that put his opponent down.
Then the referee intervened and stopped the contest. The official time of the arrest was at 2:00 of the fourth round.
Jamaine Ortiz, 28, had lost his last fight against WBO welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez by a controversial 12-round unanimous decision on February 8 in a fight that many boxing fans felt he did enough to win.
Tonight, Ortiz wasn’t going to let the judges down, as he went after Mino in the first round, unleashing a flurry of punches to put him on the canvas. The last two punches Massachusetts native Ortiz had on Mino were rabbit punches, but the referee said nothing.
In the second round, Ortiz dropped Mino with a club punch to the body. Ortiz looked like a smaller version of Sonny Liston with the form he showed with that body shot. It was surprising that Mino was able to get up from the punch.
Ortiz knocked Mino down with a left to the head in the third round. Interestingly, Mino landed a right hand as soon as the action resumed. He loaded the punch, hoping to catch Ortiz by surprise, which he did, but there wasn’t enough power to hurt him. The way Mino was trying to turn the fight around with just one punch was interesting.
In the fourth round, Ortiz shouldered Mino to the canvas. The roughhouse tactics angered Mino, who took Ortiz and body slammed on his back in a fight move that Olympic gold medalist Dan Gable would have been proud of.
The referee stopped the action and penalized Mino one point for the foul, which was a reasonable thing to do. He should also penalize Ortiz or his shouldering and rabbit punching, but he did not choose with the A-side fighter.
Moments later, Ortiz finished Mino with two lefts to the head that put him on the canvas for the fourth time. Then the referee stops the fight.
After the fight, Ortiz called out 140lb champions Jose ‘Rayo’ Valenzuela, Liam Paro and Teofimo Lopez. He took a shotgun approach calling three of them. Teofimo probably wants nothing to do with Ortiz after the trouble he gave him last February. I watched that fight and it had Ortiz winning 117-111. It wasn’t even close.
If Ortiz can’t get a title shot against either of those champions, he should consider moving up in weight to 147 or 154. Ortiz looked big enough tonight to fight at 154 easily. He was huge in the ring compared to the tiny Mino and it looked like he didn’t belong fighting someone that small.
It’s understandable why Ortiz wouldn’t want to move up to 154 because those guys can punch, and he wouldn’t be able to get as much mileage out of his career as he can at 140, fighting smaller guys.
I hope Ortiz will raise the level of his opponents because he is too good to fight veterans like Mino. Considering how much he did in that fight, he doesn’t need that level of opponent after his controversial loss to Teofimo. Ortiz didn’t need a confidence booster after the loss. If anything, it was Teofimo who needed one, which is why Top Rank beat him sweetly in his last fight.
