Oscar De La Hoya's Future
Published October 2, 2008 by Martin Bean
It’s official—the Golden Boy of Boxing, Oscar De La Hoya will not be hanging his gloves at the end of this year.
Oscar had planned to fight three times this year—his warm up against Steve Forbes, followed by a multi million dollar rematch with Floyd Mayweather in September, before bowing out in a marquee event in December, which was expected to be against slick and then unbeaten, Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto.
But, Floyd Mayweather’s retirement put a major spoke in the wheels and was then compounded by Miguel Cotto’s defeat against Antonio Margarito. Suddenly, all the marketable competitors around his natural weight (10st 7lbs to 11st) had disappeared.
This caused a major re-think. First it was announced De La Hoya would fight just once more this year instead of twice and then speculation about opponents started. Margarito was considered for the job but not selected as he wasn’t considered marketable enough, having only just come to prominence. Britain’s own Ricky Hatton was considered but it seems the Hitman decided it wasn’t the right time to fight Oscar, coming off his first defeat to Mayweather and a poor performance against Juan Lazcano. Paul Williams was another mentioned but quickly dismissed.
Finally, Filipino fan favourite Manny Pacquiao was selected and the match will take place on December 6th in Las Vegas. Despite Pacquiao being much smaller, his ferocious style, feverous support and pound for pound status meant he got the call.
Oscar has now announced it won’t be his last fight and that he will fight on next year. But where will he go from the Pacquiao fight?
Should he lose the fight or win a close match against Pacquiao, there will obviously clamour for a rematch. But, assuming he dismisses the smaller Pacquiao as many expect him to, where will he go from there.
Antonio Margarito seems an obvious option right now and if he can keep winning, a match up in summer 2009 seems a natural. Before then, it would make sense for Margarito to have a rematch against Paul Williams, to avenge his defeat and cement his status as the division’s number one. Should Williams win that rematch though, he could well come into the mix.
Ricky Hatton has close links with Golden Boy Promotions and he has also been mooted as a future opponent. This would be similar in size difference to the Pacquiao fight and in my eyes would be more of an ‘event’ than a contest. Hatton is simply too small—he claimed Floyd Mayweather was too strong so what would a bigger, stronger Oscar do to him? Despite all of that, it would be exciting while it lasted and could fill all 90,000 seats in the new Wembley stadium.
Miguel Cotto could also come back into the frame. Cotto is a masterful box-fighter and he would make for an exciting future opponent. But first, we must see how he responds to the brutal Margarito defeat and whether he can perhaps even defeat Margarito in a re-match before being considered seriously.
Speculating further, with a lack of opponents and De La Hoya no doubt being criticised for fighting smaller men, it’s possible Oscar may jump back up to Junior Middleweight or even Middleweight to try and answer his critics. This could see a third match with ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley or up at Middleweight perhaps a match against Winky Wright or Kelly Pavlik, should either of them come back down to Middleweight. These match ups might sound unlikely but do remember, this is a man who took on a peak Trinidad, Quartey, Mayweather, Hopkins and will take on anyone. He may not be at the peak of his powers but he can still give anyone in the game a run for his money.
So lets enjoy Oscar whilst he’s around and hope he picks the right opponents—we want to see 50/50 contests, not just money generating spectacles.
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