De La Hoya done - or is he...?

on December 8, 2008 by Administrator

The Goldenboy is done and all hail the Pac-man. After being blown away by the universally recognised p4p champ in the early hours of Sunday morning UK time, you have to think that it is time for Oscar De La Hoya to call it a day.

TalkBoxing.co.uk asks though – just how good was he and what next?

First things first – De La Hoya is one of the true greats. He has made more money than any other fighter in the history of the game. From when he won gold at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 – you knew this kid had a bright future ahead of him.

His first big fight was against Julio Cesar Chavez whom he beat with an 4th round TKO to take the WBC Light Welterweight Title. He had a re-match with the ageing Chavez a couple of years later and stopped him again. A tight Split Decision win over Ike Quartey was next before he tasted defeat for the first time.

He went down to Felix Trinidad in a Majority Decision in one of the most hyped fights of the decade. As we all know in boxing if a hyped fight is close and comes down to the judges’ scorecards then controversy will surely follow. De La Hoya seemed to be coasting to victory before running and hiding the final four rounds which clearly brought Trinidad back into the frame.

De Le Hoya seemed sure of victory but it wasn’t to be as Trinidad was heralded as the new Welterweight Champion of the World. To this day it was De La Hoya’s biggest fight and I know he fought Mayweather Jnr. but this was his big one. It haunts him to this day but things would get worse for the Goldenboy.

Another defeat followed soon after as ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley took a Split Decision against De La Hoya. Two defeats in relatively quick succession is never good but he was back next time out stopping Arturo Gatti in the 5th. A win against Fernando Vargas again showed that De Le Hoya was in good nick and so a re-match with Mosley came up.

Again the judges’ scorecards were tight but they all gave the fight seven rounds to five (115-113) in favour of Sugar Shane. Recently Mosley has admitted that he used EPO before the fights with Oscar De La Hoya but how much that helped him I don’t know – I’m certainly no drugs expert. That was only seven fights ago and since then he’s gone win, loss, win, loss, win, loss.

The losses came at the hands of Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather Jnr. and the Pac-man. So he doesn’t have a bad loss on his record but he does have six of them. Four of his losses were close and he was only stopped the once (by Hopkins) and he of course declined to answer the bell for the 9th round over the weekend.

It is time for De La Hoya to concentrate full-time on his career as a promoter unless…

There is only one fight out there that fight fans want to see. Nine years in the making since that controversial night at the Mandalay Bay. If Felix Trinidad wanted to have that re-match then fans would still flock to see that fight. Both fighters would be well past their prime but when it comes to boxing, a bit of nostalgia goes a long way.