Is De La Hoya Improved Enough To Beat Mayweather?

By Manuel Perez: While watching former welterweight champion Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs) giving Steve Forbes a boxing lesson en route to winning an easy 12-round unanimous decision on May 3rd, I couldn’t help but notice how improved De La Hoya was since seeing him last fight a year earlier against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May 2007. De La Hoya, 36, seemed to have regained his speed, foot movement and ring intelligence against Forbes in a fight that turned out to be one-sided. Going into the fight, many people had been saying that Oscar was washed up, that he was over the hill and should consider retiring from boxing rather than prolonging his career and just wasting people’s money.

However, De La Hoya looked more than good, he looked superb against Forbes, a fighter with a style almost identical to Mayweather’s. It was clear, at least to me, that having Floyd Mayweather Sr. working in his corner for the training for his bout with Forbes, which was what was the missing ingredient that kept De La Hoya from beating Mayweather Jr. in their previous bout a year ago. It seems that Floyd Sr. showed De La Hoya how to solve Forbes’ style, and in doing so gave De La Hoya the tool for which to beat Mayweather Jr. Namely, by using fast combinations and sticking to his jab, De La Hoya has the missing factor that he needed in order to beat Mayweather Jr.

As it was, De La Hoya came incredibly close to beating Mayweather, losing by a narrow 12-round split decision. The fight was very close to being a draw, from what I’ve seen of it, but clearly De La Hoya seemed to have some mental breakdowns in terms of his style, which was far too conservative in the second half of the fight. Against Forbes, however, De La Hoya seemed to be back to his old self, firing combinations and mixing his punches up well to the head and body. In fact, De La Hoya looked better than his old self, for his defense seemed to have improved along with his offensive attack, as he was able to evade many of the shots that Forbes threw at him.

This was a good sign, because De La Hoya seemed rudderless in his bout with Mayweather last time out, getting hit with a lot of shots and not seeming to know what to do in the ring as far as strategy. Mostly, De La Hoya seemed to just be making it up as he went, guessing a lot, making major mistakes and having to pay for it with Mayweather tagging him frequently with hard counter shots. This time, I think it’s going to be a very different fight.

In spite of what many of his detractors said about him after his fight with Forbes, De La Hoya showed a tremendous amount of improvement in that fight. I could see how having Mayweather Sr. working in his corner helped him, as well as in his training for the fight. Mayweather Sr. has already said that this time he’ll help Oscar train for his September bout with Mayweather Jr., whom he feels has become too cocky for his own good and wants to see get beat.

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Posted May 21st, 2008 l 294 Views

Tags: Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Paulie Malignaggi

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Ralph:

hey tko. for a bit oscar looked busy, then forgot his jab. also it seemed he underestimated how hard mayweather hits, otherwise he would have walked in more. he caught alot of leather with forbes. if he does not move his head, get the jab going and more combos, could be hard for him to win. it looks easy from the outside, but mayweather is difficult. oscar is going to have to be willing to do what frazier used to do. take a few to get some in.

posted May 22nd, 2008 at 5:33 pm

for the most part, oscar showed has not improved in this fight. i know in boxing everyone sees things different. look at the fight again. you have a smaller fighter making oscars face look pretty bad after the fight. have you seen his face. that comes from eating LOTS of leather. from a smaller man. an improved oscar would have moved that head more, jabbed more and gotten forbes out of there in 4 rounds. oscar looked terrible in the first mayweather fight. he will look worse in this one. oscar looked able to do more with forbes, because of size difference. oscar is not washed up, vargas is washed up. oscar is just at the end of his career. you can only improve a race car so much. at this point in his career, he can only do so much. but as far as being improved, don’t think so, again look at the face.

posted May 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 am

Is De La Hoya Improved Enough To Beat Mayweather?

Comments

Ralph:

TKO:

Ralph: