Victor Ortiz (born January 31, 1987) is an American professional boxer and film actor of Mexican descent. He held the WBC welterweight title in 2011, and was formerly rated as one of the world's top three active welterweights by a number of sporting news and boxing websites, including The Ring magazine, BoxRec, and ESPN. He was selected as the 2008 ESPN Prospect of the Year.
Outside of boxing, Ortiz has had roles in the films The Expendables 3 (2014) and Southpaw (2015), and made a cameo appearance in the TV series Ray Donovan.
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Early life
Ortiz was born and raised in Garden City, Kansas, and is the third of four children of Mexican parents. When he was seven years old, Ortiz's mother abandoned her family. Shortly thereafter, Ortiz began boxing at the insistence of his father, an alcoholic who often beat his children following his wife's departure. In an interview, Victor said, "I hated that lady. I drew her a card once with a little rose on it and I gave it to her. She just threw it down and said 'What do I want that shit for?' That's when I picked up boxing. Then my Dad started screwing up, drinking."
Ortiz' father also abandoned the family five years after their mother left, which forced Ortiz and his five siblings into the Kansas foster care system. Ortiz was twelve years old at the time. His older sister became a legal adult in 2002 and moved to Denver, Colorado. Ortiz and his younger brother left Kansas and moved in with her.
Amateur career
While training at a Salvation Army Red Shield Community Center, he was noticed by former heavyweight boxing contender Ron Lyle, who had become a supervisor at the center. In 2003, Lyle guided Ortiz to a Junior Olympics tournament, where, at the age of sixteen, he won the 132-pound weight division with a perfect 5–0 record. This time, he was noticed by another former boxer, Roberto Garcia, who had held the IBF Super Featherweight Championship during the 1990s and whose father was the trainer of Fernando Vargas. One of Ortiz's notable early amateur fights was against Amir Khan, against whom he lost in a second-round stoppage.
Move to California
Though Garcia was based in Oxnard, California, he offered to train Ortiz, who accepted and moved from Colorado to California, where he began training at La Colonia Youth Boxing Club. Garcia later became Ortiz's legal guardian, and Ortiz graduated from Pacifica High School. At age 16, Ortiz won the 2003 Police Athletic League national championships in Toledo, then at seventeen, Ortiz reached the United States Olympic boxing trials in the 132-pound weight class, where he was eliminated in the champion's bracket semifinals (The weight class was instead won by Vicente Escobedo).
Ortiz turned professional later in 2004 while still only seventeen years of age. When he reached the age of eighteen in 2005 and became a legal adult, he gained custody of his younger brother, who is now a college student. Ortiz continues to reside in Ventura, California.
Victor Ortiz boxed at The Garden City Boxing club, where he was trained by five trainers who all worked together to get him ahead in his boxing career. His original trainers included Ignacio "Buck" Avilia, Manuel Rios, Antonio Orozco Sr., Juan M. Aldana Jr. and Alfred Ritz. He won the Ringside National Title in 2001 and 2002 and the National Jr. Olympics in 2002.
Professional career
Light Welterweight
After turning professional, Ortiz easily won his first seven fights against weak opposition. However, on June 3, 2005, Ortiz was controversially disqualified in the first round of a bout against unknown Corey Alarcon in Oxnard. After having already knocked Alarcon down once in the round, Ortiz knocked him down again shortly after referee David Denkin ordered the fighters to separate from a clinch. Alarcon stayed down for the count and was awarded the fight based on Denkin's judgment that Ortiz's knockout punch had been an illegal punch during a break.
Following the fight with Alarcon, Ortiz continued to win and had built a record of 18–1–1 as of August 30, 2007, when he fought his first well-known opponent, Emmanuel Clottey of Ghana, in only his second bout scheduled for ten rounds. Ortiz defeated Clottey by technical knockout in the tenth and final round. Three months later, Ortiz followed up on his victory with another knockout win, this time in the first round of a ten-round bout against former junior welterweight titlist Carlos Maussa of Colombia.
On September 13, 2008, Ortiz fought his first bout scheduled for twelve rounds, against Roberto David Arrieta of Argentina. Ortiz knocked Arrieta down in the second, fourth and fifth rounds and won by technical knockout in the fifth round. At the end of 2008, ESPN named Ortiz the boxing prospect of the year.
On March 7, 2009, Ortiz fought his first bout televised on HBO Boxing After Dark against Mike Arnaoutis of Greece, who had fought top-ten light welterweight contenders such as Juan Urango, Ricardo Torres and Kendall Holt without ever having been knocked out. However, Ortiz scored a technical knockout of Arnaoutis in the second round.
On June 27, 2009, Ortiz faced Marcos Maidana (25–1–0) of Argentina in Los Angeles for the Interim WBA Light Welterweight title. Ortiz entered the fight with an eight-fight knockout streak. Maidana, a dangerous puncher, had won 24 of his 25 previous bouts by knockout. The only previous blemish on his record at that point was a close split decision loss to WBA Champion Andriy Kotelnik. Both Ortiz and Maidana were knocked down in the first round. Ortiz knocked Maidana to the canvas twice in the second round. Ortiz suffered a cut in the 5th round and was knocked down in the 6th round. The fight was stopped when the ringside physician would not let Ortiz continue to fight. Many in the boxing media, including HBO, chastised Ortiz for not wanting to continue in the fight, an issue which surfaced again later in his career after retiring in his fight against Josesito Lopez.
Welterweight
Ortiz fought Andre Berto for the WBC Welterweight title on April 16, 2011, at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, Mashantucket. Hailed as the early pick for the fight of the year, Ortiz won the fight by unanimous decision over Berto. They both came out aggressively, then just over a minute into the round, Ortiz landed a shot behind Berto's head and Berto went down. Berto and Ortiz exchanged knockdowns in their fights with both of them going down twice. Both fighters were hurt in that fight. However, Berto took a lot of punishment while against the ropes and looked to be exhausted after the 6th. Ortiz had his way from the 7th on and only had to worry about an occasional big punch from Berto. The judges scored the match 115–110, 114–112, and 114–111 all for the new WBC Welterweight Champion. The bout was named The Ring magazine's "Fight of the Year" for 2011.
Ortiz would face Berto, whose first thrilling slugfest in April was one of the best fights of the year, once again. The fight, which had been in discussion for weeks, was originally supposed to take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on February 11, 2012. The fight was postponed to June 30, 2012, due to Berto rupturing his biceps in training and being unable to meet the original date. On May 20, 2012, Berto failed an anti-doping test, testing positive for nandrolone. Although Berto denied having ever taken the substance intentionally, the rematch was cancelled and Light Welterweight Josesito Lopez was chosen to take his place. They did have a rematch eventually, in 2016.
On June 7, 2011, Floyd Mayweather Jr. announced via Twitter that he and Ortiz had an agreement to fight on September 17, 2011. The fight was for Ortiz's WBC Welterweight belt.
The fight took place at MGM Grand Garden Arena. From round one, Mayweather tagged Ortiz repeatedly. Mayweather seemed in control through the first three rounds, judges' scores 30–27, 30–27, and 29–28 for Mayweather, in the fourth round, Ortiz found success, landing a few shots and stinging Mayweather before bulling him into the corner. Out of frustration, Ortiz rammed Mayweather in the face with an intentional headbutt. Referee, Joe Cortez, called timeout and docked Ortiz a point for the foul. As the fight resumed, Ortiz approached Mayweather in the center of the ring and tried to apologize and even hugged Mayweather. After apologizing, Ortiz had his hands down, and Mayweather unloaded a left hook and a flush right hand to Ortiz's chin. Ortiz dropped and was unable to beat Cortez's count as the crowd of 14,687 were furious at the ruined fight.
Bare-knuckle boxing
In March 2026, Ortiz signed an agreement to compete for BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing.
Television
Dancing with the Stars
Ortiz participated on the sixteenth season of ABC's Dancing with the Stars. His professional partner was former So You Think You Can Dance competitor Lindsay Arnold. They were the fourth couple to be eliminated on the sixth week of competition.
Legal issues
Days before his September 30, 2018, bout against Molina, Ortiz was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault. He turned himself in to local authorities on September 25, according to the Oxnard Police Department. According to Ventura County Superior Court, the assaults took place in March 2018. His bail was set at $100,000. Sexual assault charges against Victor Ortiz were dismissed by prosecutors in December 2020 because they could not prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
Acting career
Victor Ortiz first appeared on screen as an actor in the action film The Expendables 3. He played the character of Mars, a young American soldier recruited onto the Expendables team.
Ortiz appeared in the sports drama film Southpaw, co-starring Jake Gyllenhaal, playing a young boxer named Ramone.
