Victor Ortiz was a young boy when his mother and his father gave up on parenting.
The painful youth of the 20-year-old Oxnard boxer is not a subject Ortiz cares to revisit often. He was left in the custody of foster parents, and occasionally split from his two siblings, an older sister and younger brother.
"It's OK," Ortiz says now, though not convincingly. "I don't need anyone. I've been doing OK on my own."
The latter part is true.
Ortiz is 19-1-1 with 14 knockouts since making his professional boxing debut as a 17-year-old in June 2004. He has won nine of his last 11 fights by knockout or technical knockout, and he'll fight for the first time outside the Southwest on Saturday in New York's Madison Square Garden when he meets former super-lightweight world champion Carlos Maussa (19-4, 17 KOs) on the undercard of the Miguel Cotto-Shane Mosley welterweight title bout.
"It represents a lot fighting there," Ortiz said. "It's a big deal.
"I've come from nothing."
After his mother left the family for another man, Ortiz said, his father introduced him to the sport.
Encouragement wasn't part of the lesson plan. Ortiz remembers critical words, no gentle coaxing and no vision of the grand plan that is now playing out. He remembers his first loss in a youth fight at age 8, and his dad's post-fight tirade.
"He beat me senseless," Ortiz said. "Told me I won't be anything, that I've amounted to all I'd be. The man was full of anger after my mom left. He drank, and beat me, my sister and my brother. For nothing."
Robert Garcia, Ortiz's current trainer, said: "It's a story [Ortiz] doesn't like to repeat. The kid has feelings. I've told him we don't need to know any more. It only brings him down, and he's doing so good now."
Ortiz said he lost all contact with his biological parents after he was turned over to the Kansas foster care system for support. There, a caring maternal foster parent told Ortiz, "I don't want you to lose that shine in your eye."
Victor's older sister, Carmen, left the state for Colorado when he was a teenager, and he later moved in with her.
Boxing still compelled the boy, and without his abusive father to poison his training, he found himself working out at a Salvation Army boxing center in Denver, where former heavyweight fighter Ron Lyle was a supervisor.
