Teofimo Lopez made his walk to the ring Thursday night in Las Vegas dressed as the greatest showman of a circus which included his very own clowns on stilts and even a sword swallower.
But the fight he produced against Jamaine Ortiz within the ring lacked any such flash and fireworks as Lopez's power punching game was bottled up due to Ortiz's shrewd spacing and gameplan.
Still, Lopez produced a unanimous decision win over Ortiz to retain his WBO junior welterweight world championship. Judges inside the Michelob Arena scored it 117-111, 115-113 and 115-113 all in favor of Lopez who landed just 78 punches to Ortiz's 80 in a scanty offensive display.
When announced as the winner, Lopez held back tears.
The champion questioned in frustration on ESPN: "How can I go after a fighter that don't want to fight?"
From the opening round, Ortiz came out in a southpaw stance and immediately set the tone for the bout with strict spacing and disciplined movement.
The storyline of the fight was Lopez in hot pursuit and hunting to uncork some offense with Ortiz frustrating him more and more by the round with his circling movement around the ropes.
During the fourth round, Lopez sensed that he was playing into the hands of Ortiz and backed his way into the corner, inviting the challenger to bring the fight to him — something that Ortiz obliged on. However, that was about as heated as the fight ever got.
For many rounds, Ortiz's ability to move around the ring and Lopez's inability to cut the ring in half triggered the Vegas crowd into boos.
Still, judges credited Lopez as the aggressor who did find his mark during some sequences with shots landed, while not being baited into giving Ortiz more rounds as the challenger didn't do enough with impact on offense.
With the victory, Lopez (20-1, 13 KOs) made his first title defense of the WBO junior welterweight strap. Ortiz fell to 17-2-1 with 8 KOs.
Here's how the entire fight went.