‘Carlos is a proud man, as he should be, and all great champions have ego when it comes to their ability. But he’s not enthused by the modern-day fighters and I quote him in my book talking about Floyd Mayweather and explaining why he could beat him. It’s all logical, makes sense – just as his boxing style was logical and makes sense.’ Silver paused. ‘I think that he’s a living treasure, the last of the truly great fighters who employed the art of boxing to win, and young fighters would get more out of viewing those two films than they would a year under their trainer.’
Ortiz’s greatness is not open to dispute. But Carlos Ortiz, at least as Silver describes him, sounds like an anomaly, a throwback, a remnant from a bygone era, a vestige of the last golden age.
‘He was the exception to the rule,’ Silver said. ‘When he turned pro in ’55, the industry was not developing the numbers of great fighters, or near-great fighters, that it had in the past when the competition demanded it. Television also had a lot to do with it. But it’s like a spinning top. It doesn’t stop all of a sudden. It slows down, it slows down, it slows … and then it stops. Boxing was slowing down. But you still had Charley Goldman training fighters. You had Bill Gore, Willie Pep’s old trainer. You had some of the old-time trainers working with fighters and imparting their knowledge. You didn’t have the tomato can mentality, the mismatch culture you have today. Fighters were still put into competitive fights. Not many great fighters were developed after the war, but there were enough to keep the art of boxing alive. You had Joey Giardello coming after the war. You had Harold Johnson coming after the war. You had Joey Giambra and Duilio Loi coming up. You had Emile Griffith, Luis Rodriguez, Jose Napoles, and of course Carlos Ortiz. And it still made the sport interesting. So I think anomaly is too strong a word.
‘I’ll tell you who the anomalies are,’ continued Silver. ‘The only two anomalies that I see are Pacquiao and Mayweather. You have an incredibly talented athlete with tremendous natural ability and instinct in Mayweather, who, with that type of reflexes, skills and sense of anticipation, in his prime would have given lots of fighters lots of problems. I don’t think he would have become a champion, because he would have had to develop extra skills, he would have had to develop more technical ability – how to get out of the way of a straight left jab, how to get a barrage going without darting back ten feet, and how to use his athletic ability to become more effective because the old-timers would have known how to counter that speed.
‘Pacquiao has that incredible old-school work ethic and he has a difficult southpaw style. He’s interesting to watch. I don’t think he’s a great fighter, I don’t put him in any top ten, but he adds interest to the sport. But if you go back thirty, forty, fifty years, we didn’t have just one Pacquiao. We had maybe twenty Pacquiaos. You didn’t have just one Mayweather. You had maybe a dozen guys with that type of natural ability – or more. So every now and then we see somebody come up and they develop some skills and that’s an anomaly. A lot of fighters today have tremendous natural ability. I see it all the time when they turn pro. You have someone like Yuriorkis Gamboa. What a talented fighter! In the golden age, who knows how far he could have gone? But we do not live in a boxing environment that can bring out that talent to its fullest potential. The training isn’t there. The competition isn’t there. It’s just the way it is.’
There will be naysayers. That’s to be expected when one challenges the status quo. It sometimes seems as if Mike Silver goes out of his way to divide opinion, consciously, willfully, perhaps gleefully, and he may or may not be a nostalgist. But having pushed the clock forward, I wondered if Silver could turn back the hands of time and tell me how he thought Carlos would have stacked up against lightweights like Gans or Leonard, two of the sweetest sweet scientists the game has ever known.
‘After Benny Leonard and Joe Gans, the lightweights are one of the most difficult divisions to place a top ten,’ he said, ‘because there were so many super fighters in that division. I don’t think he’s in the top ten, but I would have no problem putting him somewhere among the top twenty-five. I think Leonard would have been a little too smart, even for Carlos. But I think Carlos against Roberto Duran, who was a great lightweight, is a pick ’em fight. I’ve spoken to a few old-timers whose opinions I respect tremendously who said that they felt Carlos Ortiz would have out-boxed Roberto Duran. Duran always had problems with guys who could move and knew how to throw a jab and were elusive – and Carlos could be very elusive, just look at his fight with Joe Brown. Leonard and Gans would have considered Carlos Ortiz a dangerous opponent and they’d really have to be on their game to defeat him. But you could name any one of a hundred lightweights of the golden age that would have been competitive with every other great lightweight that ever lived. That’s how deep the talent in that division was. You had Lou Ambers, Henry Armstrong, Barney Ross, Tony Canzoneri, Kid Chocolate, Sammy Mandell. Now we’re talking about the greats of the great. Boxing.com online article 7 August 2012 Robert Ecksel
[8.9] DAVIS, GERVONTA 29-29(27)-0-0 [IBF Super-Featherweight & WBA Lightweight & WBA Super-Lightweight]
29) v Ryan Garcia KO7: US fight commentary
v Ryan Garcia 22 April 1023 WBC Super-Featherweight Philadelphia [r1]: … Davis on that back foot … Cautious start to the first round … Garcia flashes the jab … Garcia is the first one to try to land power punches … Davis … along the ropes … [r2] … Oh what a shot! … by Davis! … Just like that! … and again Davis with that left hand … [r3] … Davis scores again … pops the jab … left by Garcia … Davis putting on the pressure … [4] … Just gob of feinting by Davis … the constant threat of the knockout … Jab from Davis … his trademark left .. right hand by Garcia inside … [5] … Davis winning every round since (r1) … Davis doing a good job at counterpunching … [r6] … Garcia with best moments of the fight … Davis with trying to control the lead hand … Close round … [r7] … Gacia … right hand … Straight left hand lands for Davis … Garcia forced to take the knee … US fight commentary