Forbes-De La Hoya: Look For Controversial Ending

By Boxing News - 05/02/2008 - Comments

de-la-hoya3535597.jpgBy Chris Stein: Oscar De La Hoya (38-5, 30 KOs) hopes to get by his tune-up opponent former IBF super featherweight champion Steve Forbes (33-5, 9 KOs) this Saturday night at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California. De La Hoya, 36, hasn’t seen action in a year, since losing a 12-round split decision to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May 2007. Rather than take a risky tune-up against a junior middleweight or a top 10 welterweight, De La Hoya has opted to dip down into the junior welterweight division to fight the diminutive Forbes, 31, a move perhaps to ensure that the badly fading De La Hoya somehow comes out on top.

However, even with a three inch height advantage and a five in reach advantage over Forbes, I still expect De La Hoya to lose the fight, although he’ll still get the decision in the end regardless of how bad he’s beaten. Just like in his battle with Felix Sturm in June 2004, in which De La Hoya was handed a 12-round unanimous decision, in spite of the fact that he appeared to lose the fight handily, by at least six rounds on many of the ringside observers. In short, Sturm would have likely needed a knockout to get the victory over De La Hoya that night, for there was a lot riding on the outcome – an upcoming mega fight with Bernard Hopkins.

As everyone knows by now, De La Hoya was given the gift decision and moved onto his fight with Hopkins, losing by a 9th round KO three months later in September 2004. Nothing has changed this time around, except that Forbes is even less known than Sturm and much smaller to boot. Obviously, the fight isn’t sporting to begin with given the size and power differences between De La Hoya and Forbes, with all the advantages swinging in De La Hoya’s favor. With all that, I still see Forbes beating De La Hoya by a sizable margin and making him look bad in the process. However, due to Forbes’ lack of power, he’ll be unable to knock De La Hoya out, and hence will end up losing as I mentioned before.

I think De La Hoya has made a tremendous blunder by choosing Forbes as his tune-up opponent, because Forbes has a ton of talent, more than De La Hoya ever had in his prime. Forbes reminds me a lot of a cross between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and James Toney, before he got fat. It’s not surprising that Forbes would have a fighting style similar to Mayweather, because he’s trained by Jeff Mayweather, the uncle of Jeff, and has been trained by the Mayweather’s for years. This is one of the reasons that De La Hoya has chosen Forbes as an opponent, wanting a fighter with a similar style to Floyd Mayweather Jr., whom he’ll be fighting a rematch with in September 20th.

De La Hoya looked bad against Mayweather, and looks to be hoping to get some early practice by taking on Forbes. Forbes, though, is an excellent inside fighter, rivaling Ricky Hatton in his inside skills. Forbes doesn’t resort to wrestling and fouling like Hatton does, instead he fights fairly, staying active the entire time while inside and constantly throwing punches. Along with his inside fighting style, Forbes like to apply a lot of pressure on his opponents thus wearing them down in the second half of his fights. His stamina is excellent as is his body attacks, which is generally ferocious as he wears his opponents down during the course of his bouts.

Another fighter that Forbes reminds me of is Joe Frazier, although without his stunning power. However, Forbes has an excellent left hook and his bobbing and weaving style looks like a close approximation of Frazier’s old style. For this reason, I see Forbes giving De La Hoya a lot of problems in their bout on Saturday night, in particular in the second half of the fight when De La Hoya generally begins to slow down.

I see nothing changing in terms of De La Hoya’s class poor stamina, which will rear its ugly head by the 6th round, letting Forbes take complete control of the fight and give De La Hoya a sound beating. As I mentioned earlier, De La Hoya will still win the fight, unless Forbes somehow gets lucky and knocks De La Hoya out. I seriously doubt he can, meaning that De La Hoya wins this by another gift decision.



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