My final words regarding Gabriel Montoya

I thought I would put everything out there regarding my thoughts on Gabriel Montoya and our differences in the past. Also, to answer questions some might have about a link he posted on his Tumblr, the place where you once were able to read Montoya's terrible erotic fiction.

Here is the direct message that is posted on Gabriel's site. It is blacked out in certain parts. I will read to you what it says in complete text, as it took me several hours to go back through my DMs and find this particular one.

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:27:48
MarkEOrtega (at the time I was OrtegaLIITR): Just read Casal is fighting Kendall Holt. Need any footage of Holt before the fight? I have tons on him, I give really good prices.

This Direct Message was directed towards the acccount @Boxing360. If you are unfamiliar, Boxing 360 is a promotional company based out of New York who I've long assumed has been putting money into Maxboxing.com's pockets to run stories on their fighters. I have no proof of this, but it reeks of the time when promoter TKO Boxing Promotions was spending a hefty dollar on advertising space on Maxboxing.com.

Montoya hardly writes at what I would call a frequent pace. He contributes between two to three articles a week on average, if you're unlucky enough to come across them.

Despite this, Gabriel has always found time to write about Boxing 360 fighters. Whether it is Maurice Harris, Joel Diaz Jr., Amanda Serrano, or any number of their fighters, he covers them very regularly. Harris is a journeyman heavyweight with an interesting story, but not interesting enough to warrant this many stories over a short period:
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/maurice-harris-looks-ahead
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/maurice-harris-ready-for-the-unwilling
http://www.doghouseboxing.com/Gabriel/Montoya080610.htm
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/maurice-harris-i-wont-take-no-for-an-answer
Gabriel even had Harris on his radio show: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/leaveitintheringradio/2012/05/11/leave-it-in-the-ring-3hours-of-boxing-talk

Gabriel's stories on young promising prospect Joel Diaz Jr., whom he covered a ton for a guy in his first handful of fights before ever being on TV:
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/joel-diaz-jr-looks-to-make-it-five-in-a-row
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/joel-diaz-jr-finally-descends-the-mountain
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/joel-diaz-jr-stays-ready1
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/joel-diaz-jr-answers-the-call
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/abel-sanchez-joel-diaz-makes-you-want-to-coach-better

I obviously could be off base here, but it has always looked like to me he's been giving this promoter favors.

Anyways, let's address that direct message to Boxing 360's Twitter account where I offered them footage of an opponent to one of their fighters.

Yes, it is admittedly an inappropriate thing to do. But let's put this into context. In December 2011, I had been writing about boxing for four years.

Want to know how much money I had made writing about boxing to that point?

Zero. Dollars.

Yes, zero. In fact, I had invested much of my spendable money into riding to fights with my older brother Mario Ortega, then a regular writer for 15rounds.com. We went to southern California a number of times, to Sacramento, got hotels, etc. All of that was covered out of our own pockets.

At the time, writing about boxing was mostly a hobby. I hadn't earned a cent doing it, and though I thought if I applied myself perhaps one day I could get there, it still seemed pretty far away. Ironically enough, in the next six months I would get published in RING Magazine and Boxing Monthly, respectively. I never sold footage to a fighter's camp once I earned my first dollar as a writer.

Want to know what site I was writing for at the time? Leave-it-in-the-ring.com. Yes, the same site that Montoya co-hosts a radio show with David Duenez. Go ahead and ask how much money Duenez paid me over the year-long period I wrote for his site. If he's honest, he'll tell you that number was zero dollars. Though I admit, he once bought me lunch at a Chili's or something.

At the time I was also helping out with a online boxing magazine called Undisputed Fight Magazine. It was a very interesting concept that I got hooked on when I was recruited earlier that summer to participate. When the initial editor fell out due to being overworked, myself as well as UK writer Shaun Brown (a helluva guy), took over and invested hundreds of man-hours into the project. When the magazine looked like it was folding, I brought it to the attention of Duenez, who came in as a co-owner of the magazine.

Eventually, Duenez had a terrible Twitter exchange with the guy who had taken a step back as the editor and all hell broke loose. Shaun had enough (I couldn't blame him) and stepped away. At that point, all the responsibility fell into my lap.

I was working an overnight shift at CVS at the time, working 11 PM to 7 AM. I was investing probably close to full-time hours on that magazine on my own time, all while making zero dollars. I saw the potential to make money in the project, and told Duenez I didn't want to make a dollar until it was actually turning a profit. We charged $1.99 an issue.

There were a TON of talented writers involved with this project, many of whom have found success elsewhere. As an operation, it was ran as a clusterfuck. It was a total mess. At one point in time, I actually got severe stomach pains that I was told were associated with too much stress when I finally went to the doctor.

I had a ton of creative ideas flowing that would work specifically well for a magazine, print or otherwise. The "The First Time" pieces I've adopted for RingTV.com came from an idea I initially quelled while at UFM. I also had ideas of comparing two prospects from opposing continents that were in the same weight class, rather than the usual prospect pieces. Also a gaming section where you talk to a specific fighter about their video gaming habits that I thought would have been fun as a light read. I also extensively polled people on the 15 best fights in HBO Boxing After Dark history as the 15th anniversary was coming up, with the plan being to break it up over two issues. This is where we revisit Gabriel Montoya a bit.

At this point in time, Gabriel had been brought on in some capacity to contribute to the magazine. With Duenez, he was running the show even though I was doing a majority of the work as far as handing out assignments and coming out with ideas. When he wanted to bring new writers on, he just told me, "Hey, this person is now writing this," rather than talking to me about it. Apparently, he and Gabe had something worked out that I was unaware of.

The beauty of an online magazine is that you can recruit people from other websites to contribute to it, because really, it is a completely different medium. With that in mind, I reached out to a couple of quality writers from other sites to gauge their interest in contributing. They got the permission of their editors and things seemed to be going well.

For the Top 15 Boxing After Dark fights, which I had come up with after mass e-mailing different writers and boxing people a long list of all the fights and asking for top 10s, then breaking it down to a top 15, I thought it would be cool to get different people to write up each fight.

Like I said, this was to be broken up over two (or more) issues. The first issue featuring this piece would have 300-word writeups on fights ranked #6 to #15. I had a deadline for all of these writers to turn in their work. Montoya was one of the writers I had asked to help, and he seemed glad to.

I had a deadline for it that passed without Gabe sending me anything. I sent him DMs on Twitter, e-mails, no response. The deadline was a Friday, and on Sunday, Gabe was tweeting about the St. Louis Rams game while I had not heard back from him. We needed to submit all content for the magazine Monday at the latest in order for it to be put in. This also knowing I'd have to edit it before doing so.

When Gabe didn't respond, I said fuck it, spent an hour watching the fight he was supposed to write up (ironically, Maurice Harris against Derrick Jefferson), wrote a 300-word write-up and wrote off Gabe.

Later that night, without any previous e-mail or answer stating he was working on it, he sends his version to me. Even though initially I was very pissed off about that, I intended on using his version.

Until I read it. It was 1,100 words long, or about 3.5 times what the requirements were size-wise. I asked Duenez what I should do, and he said it was up to me. Here are the corresponding e-mails:


Dave Duenez to me, at 10:07 PM, Sept. 27, 2011

 I like urs its short and sweet .... though Gabriel is more personal.  But I know where ur going.  Ur call Mark

editor in chief / publisher

David Duenez

Me to Gabe at 10:47 PM, Sept. 27, 2011

Hey Gabe,

We couldn't wait any longer on your writeup to get this thing finished off so after not receiving it this weekend I sat down and watched the fight and wrote it up. Plus it was meant to be about 300 words as its part of a series of 10 writeups that are going in this. The thing was already sent off to the publisher and Dave said to just move on with what we got. Sorry about that, hope you understand.

Gabe to me at 11:27 PM, Sept, 27, 2011

I write how I write. Nothing quality can come in 300 words. I did that work and it's being tossed aside for a digital magazine a week away from going live? That's a waste of time I could have used writing something for money. 

Do what you want but just don't ask me for any more stories. 

Me to Gabe at 12:28 AM, Sept. 28, 2011

Gabe,

Come on man.

On the 15th when I first asked if you would be willing to contribute to this collaborative effort, I told you it was a 300 word count thing. If you knew you wouldn't be able to make that work why didn't you tell me that from the gate?

You asked when I would need it by, and I told you the 23rd. You told me you could do that. When it didn't happen I waited a bit before emailing you to let you know I could stand to wait until the end of the weekend. You didn't so much as make the effort to respond to my emails asking where your progress was with it. It wasn't until I hopped on Twitter that you let me know you were watching football and you'd have it to me by the end of the night.

The end of the night rolled around and I didn't receive anything. I noticed your Twitter timeline was quite busy which was a little irritating. At this point I got in touch with Dave, he later told me you said you sent it to me and that you'd resend it when you got home or something. I didn't get it until 10pm tonight, after I had already written you off and went ahead and wrote it up myself, which I posted on Twitter.

If you would have sent me something within the 300 word guideline I had setup, I would have had no problem replacing my hour and a half worth of work with your piece. But it didn't work that way.

Of course an 1100 word piece is going to be more emotionally resonant than a 300 word one. But if all ten fights got 1100 words the feature would be 20+ pages. This isn't just an Internet piece where word count doesn't matter. And given the word count, everyone else came pretty close to making it work for them and still bringing something worth reading. With magazines you can't just go on and on, there isn't space for that.

You did that work, yes. But you gave me no indication it was coming, no explanation why it didn't get to me on time. How was I being unreasonable in only taking things into my own hands when I could wait for it no longer? Especially considering you did almost nothing to try and communicate with me?

This is not to mention the story you were supposed to be giving us for the magazine. The one I asked you what your angle was and you told me to talk to Dave, which I did not understand. You told Dave it wasn't going to work out in time and you didn't see me bat an eye over it.

I feel like you have some personal problem with me or something. I've only ever had good things to say publicly about you. I am forever grateful for you going to bat for me over the credentials for Moralea-Maidana and helping me out with contacts when I've asked. Even when you tool up Steve Kim's cause and came at me on Twitter, I never once attacked you personally, only Steve. And since then I backed off on that crusade completely since it rubbed you the wrong way.

So tell me what I need to do to resolve this because I don't think your anger is really valid here. 

Gabe to me at 12:27 PM, Sept. 28, 2011

Nothing to resolve, Mark. I don't appreciate being hounded on twitter and facebook. Dave was clear with you to leave me alone. I have no deal with Undisputed. It was a personal deal between me and Dave that had zero to do with you. We made that clear. Dave told you to leave me be. You did not. 

I work for money. When I work for free it has to be because I want to. Constantly being badgered made it less fun with each message I received. 

You asked me for a 300 word blurb. Sorry but I gave you my perspective on the fight. As I understood it, the magazine is in fact, on the internet. What's more, I find it much more interesting to hear different writers give their takes on a fight no matter how long. Dave told me he wanted this to be something special. Something unlike any other magazine or website. Now you say I went on and on?  I was trying to give you my best work. Not good enough? Not the way you demanded it despite being told to lay the fuck off? Awesome. ind another guy who does this for a living to do it for free. 

As for the other piece, you can't have it. I worked too hard to have you look at it and deem it not worthy. I'd rather it sit unread than have that happen. 

Me to Gabe at 1:26 PM, Sept. 28, 2011

Dave never told me to leave you alone. That wasn't made clear to me. If so, I wouldn't have asked you to contribute to the damn thing.

And leave you alone? When I am the one editing most of the work, organizing things, I don't understand how that makes sense.

You ASKED what the deadline was. You didn't meet it. When you didn't, I said don't worry about it as long as you could get it to me by the end of the weekend. You didn't even have the courtesy to respond.

 Hounded? Give me a break. Tell me where my tone suggests I was hounding you. You never communicated with me. You SAW that it was a 300 word thing. Do you think you are special and you can work outside of word counts and deadlines? You must with the way you have acted and on top of that the way you don't feel like you did anything wrong.

Where did I say it wasn't good enough exactly? I don't see those words anywhere below. I said of course with 1100 words it will be more emotionally resonant but if everyone took 1100 words it would be 22 pages long. Or do you think you deserve two pages to yourself when everyone else's writeup fits 1/3 or 1/2 of a page? 

Demanded? I asked and you told me you could do it. You email me your piece in the 13th hour. No explanation why it wasn't when you said it would be. No explanation why it wasn't 300 words, which you told Dave you could do in your sleep. But you're Gabe Montoya, you're above all deadlines and word counts.

I took an hour and a half out of my own time to write what you told me you would be able to do. My time is less valuable than yours? At this stage of everything going on with the magazine, I didn't have time to be writing any new material but I really didn't have a choice. Now I should just toss that aside because you finally sent me something? Sent me something that you gave me no heads up I would even be receiving?

At that point in time, I just wrote it off, saying I'd never involve myself professionally with Gabe in any way. A few months later I began writing for Queensberry-Rules.com. Duenez had gotten upset at me for contributing an article to their site he said I got using a phone number he gave me. He had given me Glen Johnson's number for an article that I contributed to his site. I later used that number to write a piece getting a bunch of people who fought in the Super Six, were trainers, and promoters to give their predictions on the finals. Duenez wasn't very happy about this and "fired" me, more or less. He then drudged my name through the mud as much as he could, referring to me as a moneygrubber [despite never making a dollar doing anything for him] as well as an assortment of other things.

Gabriel became more involved with the digital magazine I was involved with, and predictably, it went to total shit. 

Oct. 2011 issue, one of the last I was involved with in a major way

The cover of the Dec. 2011 issue, where "remembering" is spelled wrong. Cool looking cover though.

Cover of the Jan. 2012 issue, with a cover article by Montoya. Like that cover? A beautiful drawing by artist Amanda Kelley, whom I had recruited to do this for us months before leaving. "Exclusive" spelled incorrectly.

Feb. 2012 issue, incomplete thought "The aftermath of the Khan vs. Peterson" on the cover.

Mar. 2012 issue, "Mosley" is spelled wrong.

May 2012, "Sugar" spelled incorrectly in Bert Sugar.

June 2012 issue, "payback" should be one word.

July 2012, final issue. P.E.D.s doesn't have periods.

So of eight issues they produced after I left, only one didn't have any obvious errors on their front cover. I can't tell you about the inside, though.

I'm not saying it crashed and burned because I wasn't there, but Dave and Gabriel in two positions of prominence spelled immediate trouble. If you've ever read Gabe's work, you know it is a constant Gatti-Ward type battle with the English language and grammar in general.

Even then, I was courteous to Gabe until July of last year. This is when he was infamously banned by Golden Boy Promotions for the way in which he handled himself trying to find information on a supposed positive Floyd Mayweather test.

Here's the the series of tweets that set him off:

You still follow @stevemaxboxing... RT @Gabriel_Montoya: I am unfollowing all silent boxing media. How can I support those that don't?
— Mark Ortega (@MarkEOrtega) July 11, 2012

Main part of that Twitter exchange

@Gabriel_Montoya @stevemaxboxing My point, Gabe, is if Steve doesn't have your back on this GBP ban, why do you expect other writers with no connection to back you up? #boxing #wakeup

Then there was of course this one, which is what had Gabe challenging me to a fight, and also slapping me in person at the Rouge bar at MGM Grand after Sergio Martinez against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.:

Gabe put in his place

Then of course the official boxing match we had agreed to. Eventually, multiple people contacted me saying it was a bad idea that would make both of us look terrible and if I was serious about writing, I should refrain. I then backed out, took a bunch of flack for it, and Gabe harassed me for months about "being a coward". I flat out ignored him from October to February of this year. Four months of constant shot taking from one douchebag will get you to respond.

That brings us to the last six months or so of annoying back and forths between me and Gabe. I have reached my limit and will no longer respond to Gabriel Montoya in any way, nor address his terribleness as a writer or person, no matter how much I might like to.

But first, let's visit some of Gabe's hypocrisy. Just today, for instance, he responded to a tweet about how Top Rank would foot the bill for some writers to attend Pacquiao-Rios in Macau. His response was interesting, and took a shot at me. The tweeter asked wondering who would qualify.

@truewest007 The ones who tow the party line. Whortega already has his mouth open, I hear. He might just be breathing though.
— Gabriel Montoya™ (@Gabriel_Montoya) August 6, 2013

Personally, I don't have TOO much of a problem with a promotion footing the bill for stuff in circumstances extreme like this, where the fight is basically impossible to cover otherwise. But what makes Gabe's point interesting is that Steve Kim, also of Maxboxing.com, once wrote an entire article in 2008 about how great it was to travel on the dime of Dan Goossen to cover an Andre Ward fight in the Cayman Islands. Unfortunately, Maxboxing's archives are shit and I think the article has been wiped, but trust me, it exists.

Gabe is a hypocrite in a number of ways.

In January 2011, on the Boxing Tribune message board [who is now Gabe's mortal enemy], he posted about media lunches:

Do I think some writers are lazy or take an easy way out or maybe even take freebies? I'm sure it happens though I couldn't name names because I wouldn't know those names. Personally, I'm squeamish about taking the media lunch. I never want to be beholden to a promoter or anyone else.

In this March 2012 ode to Bert Sugar, it seems his stance had changed quite a bit:

 After peeking out to see the first of the evening’s bouts, I wandered into the press room so I could slip into the press conference room. This is the holy of holies: the free media buffet. Some guys think you’re a shill for partaking. Me? I’m a starving artist over here who needs the calories. And let’s face it; when I am in Vegas, not counting all the booze and cigarettes I can consume for that weekend, this might be the only time I think to eat. Watching six or more fights and writing about it in as much detail as you can is taxing. No time but the present to load up. As for the conflict of interest that exists with a journalist taking a free meal from a promoter [Editor’s Note: to all young writers, I put this to you: get that meal. You deserve it], I say this: If you are compromised that easily by a chicken burrito and some white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, you’ve got bigger personal fish to fry than being a biased boxing writer.

Full disclosure: I eat the media meals. Fuck it. If they're going to conduct things where I need to be in attendance around lunch time, might as well be able to get a bite in. And I agree with Gabe's final words where if a free burrito sways your allegiance, you have issues. Free Stone Temple Pilots tickets, that's another issue...

Then of course, there's the news that Montoya wrote the testing protocol for Canadian drug testing in boxing, which he failed to disclose his involvement. It only became known because of my dislike for Gabe and my knowledge of his involvement due to an audio recording. I listened to only the first 30 seconds where he mentions designing the protocols and the contracts.

Brent Brookhouse did a much better job of handling it, as he wrote an article. I never intended to write an article, just to out Gabe for being a scumbag.

The person who did the best job of pointing out his hypocrisy was Gabe's Maxboxing mate, Matthew Paras. He wrote a Twitlonger on the subject that largely got ignored. I'll republish the key parts.

His problem comes with something he's stressed all along throughout this whole drug testing process - transparency. 

"The thinking was if people knew where the labs are and what the protocols are, they figure out how to beat the tests," said Montoya. "And I can't disagree with them as the rest of the anti-doping community in any sport believes the same thing. That keeping the dopers in the dark is part of the process. VADA is one of the only ones that has tried to be transparent about what tests they do, but they also do the strictest tests, so they can afford to be."

If the rest of the doping community agrees with keeping the process in the dark, then why has Gabe in the past stressed the importance that USADA and Golden Boy Promotions in disclosing the nature of their contracts and testing procedures? 

"It’s easier to do testing under a shroud of secrecy and ignore media questions about alleged impropriety than it is to have a transparent drug testing program that may end up cancelling fights due to its discoveries," Montoya writes (http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/boxings-ped-problem-where-do-we-go-from-here-) 

 Aside from that, I've got little to say about Gabe because I could talk all night about what a joke of a writer he is, both in boxing and in adult fiction. Yes, he writes adult fiction. He has since taken down the poetry, but in one "poem", he used the phrases "hot wetness" and "wet hotness" within two lines of each other. WTF?


These are my final words on Gabriel Montoya. If you have any questions, please direct them to me via e-mail at markeortega@gmail.com. I will not discuss this further on Twitter, enough pissing matches between me and him have taken place there.

And for the record, I no longer sell DVDs. I stopped once I began writing for RingTV, and all I did was fulfill orders that it was brought to my attention weren't received. Packages were re-sent to my old address and I didn't know until multiple people informed me they didn't get them. I've since taken care of all of these to my knowledge. If for some reason you believe you ordered DVDs from me and did not receive them, please contact me via e-mail and we can arrange for me to return payment. I've contacted everybody I know has previously bought some off of me, but it is possible something slipped through the cracks.

Good day!

Mark Ortega