If you have a bunch of missed calls on your phone this week from that one friend who seems to pop up only when there’s a must-see fight on pay-per-view, this is why: Floyd Mayweather, who hasn’t fought since last May, makes his return to the ring this Saturday against Victor Ortiz in Las Vegas for Ortiz’s WBC welterweight title. Everyone, by this point, knows Mayweather: He’s the second half of the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight that will likely never happen. Ortiz, a heavy underdog, is a 24-year-old punishing southpaw with a 29-2-2 record, who endeared himself to fight fans in April with a knockdown-heavy bout against Andre Berto:  The two men are miles apart in terms of careers and backgrounds. Ortiz, a Kansas City native, tweeted out his excitement Thursday when the Royals sent him a tracksuit and a hat. Mayweather, meanwhile, talked to reporters Tuesday about winning over $100,000 in sports bets thanks to Tom Brady’s Monday night performance. “Ortiz strolled into the lobby of the MGM wearing a Kansas City Royals cap backward, a cutoff hoodie and sweatpants alongside a couple confidants,” The Las Vegas Sun’s Case Keefer writes about the Tuesday arrivals. “Mayweather showed up an hour later sporting designer apparel from head to toe. His group of approximately 20 associates, which he calls ‘The Money Team,’ never strayed far from his side.” But there’s a reason for this discrepancy, explains USA Today’s Bob Velin: Mayweather has earned it. “Forty-one men over the last 15 years have met Floyd Mayweather in the ring. All 41 left with another loss on their résumé and good things to say about Mayweather,” Velin writes. “Usually along the line of ‘he’s a lot better than I thought he was.’”  Ortiz, however, isn’t just a walkover. He’s a young, hungry fighter who packs powerful punches and can make a name for himself with a win Saturday. “He’s clearly world class, and would likely beat any welterweight on the scene not named Pacquiao or Mayweather,” John Nguyen of The Sweet Science writes. “The question is whether he can elevate himself beyond ‘good’ to ‘great.’ It’s a jump that only a select few fighters in each generation are capable of making, and it’s a move that Victor Ortiz has the opportunity to make.”  Ortiz at least makes a compelling case to root for an upset. Partially abandoned by his parents as a child, he and his brother, Temo, grew up largely in foster care. He worked out at a boxing gym close to the home, eventually finding his way to California to train professionally. But Ortiz, according to Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star, always made his way back to Kansas. In fact, several years ago, Ortiz reconnected with a friend from middle school and started spending a lot of time at Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of Kansas. He taps into that relaxed atmospherepickup basketball games, food runs and video gameswhenever the stress of a fight gets to him. In his last two fights, he’s had a Jayhawk on his trunks. “He’s just a kid from a small-town place in Kansas,” Brennan Killen, a Sigma Phi Epsilon member, tells Dodd, “and that’s what he still is. Most people don’t even know he’s a high-profile boxer until like the fourth time they’ve hung out with him.”  Check back with the Daily Fix on Saturday night to follow a live blog from the Journals own Ph.D. of punches, Gordon Marino.  On Thursday, The Economist officially launched a new sports blog, Game Theory. Its focus, so far, has been on the poor planning of the U.S. Open, the misguided assumptions that scoring would suffer in the first week of the NFL season and the burgeoning screen golf phenomenon in South Korea. This Daily Fixer, who wades through approximately 250 articles every day to bring you the best from around the sportswriting landscape, is especially tickled to read the usual American sports talk translated into British (i.e. defences, offences and “labour troubles” in the NFL article).  Don’t think The Economist can cover sports? As the introductory post reminds us, it already has. In fact, a 1995 article on some growing phenomenon called the Internet predicted that we’d eventually be able to download audio clips of Tottenham Hotspur chants and watch soccer matches on our screens. “Cyber couch potatoes are ready,” the unsigned story says. “There is already a web page devoted to televised soccer.” Welcome to the sports world, Economist. Or, more appropriately, welcome back.  With a 9-2 win over the Boston Red Sox Thursday night, the Tampa Bay Rays pulled to within three games of Boston’s wild-card spot in the American League. The two teams play each other three more times over the weekend, meaning the Rays could enter next week in a tie for the wild-card lead. “If the big red freakout button isn’t fully pressed, it’s blinking below a sweaty thumb,” The Journal’s Jason Gay writes. “In just a couple of weeks, the Red Sox have witnessed the steep erosion of a nine-game lead in baseball’s wild-card race.”  Quietly, and hilariously, Kevin Strahle, who goes by the name L.A. Beast on Twitter and YouTube, has been taking competitive eating and drinking to an awesome extreme. Last week, he completed what he calls the Reverse Sushi Roll Challenge, which includes eating one baseball-sized chunk of wasabi, chugging a bottle of soy sauce and finishing a king-sized sushi tower. Two weeks ago, he downed a bottle of Elmer’s glue and ate a stick of butter. On Thursday, he chugged 80 ounces of pickle juice from a Vlasic bottlewith the pickles still insideas a poster of Justin Bieber watched over him. It is safe to say that this is probably not a good idea to try at home. And some of the language in the videos may not be appropriate for the office. But they’re worth saving for later. The salty-mouthed computer voice introducing the challenge and the dramatic music played over the stunts as he completes each task are priceless.  One of L.A. Beast’s more popular accomplishments? Chugging a dozen raw eggs from a vase as the music from “Rocky” plays. He then does a quick workout with a Shake Weight and is interrupted with a little bout of stomach sickness before finishing the workout. L.A. Beast kicks off your weekend of tailgating, boxing and wild card chasing with the 12-egg chug:  Found a good column from the world of sports? 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Floyd Mayweather makes his return to the ring not to fight Manny Pacquiao but Victor Ortiz, a worthy underdog. Plus: code red in Boston; extreme competitive eating; and more.