By Scott Gilfoid: I for one am really hoping that Oscar De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KOs) finally shuts the door on his career and announces his retirement from boxing at his scheduled press conference on April 14th. It’s maddening to see him getting all these fights – and losing them all pretty much – and yet getting even more of them on top of that. I wouldn’t mind it so much if his fights were shown on free television like ESPN, but to have to pay to see him take a beating time after time is pointless and a waste of time.
There’s no touch of suspense when De La Hoya fights, because you know that he’s going to lose, unless, of course, he’s fighting some short, small guy like Steve Forbes or an over the hill fighter. Put him with a live body, whether it be a bottom 15 guy or number #1 ranked fighter, and you’ll see De La Hoya take a vicious beating to be sure. It didn’t use to be that way.
He was once a good fighter, but never really the guy in any division he fought in, but still one of the best fighters in his weight class. I hated the way that he fought, fighting scared much of the time in fights against an old Pernell Whitaker or Julio Cesar Chavez.
De La Hoya, in his prime at that time, beat them, but he hardly impressed me in doing so. When De La Hoya finally lost for the first time when chose to run away from Felix Trinidad in the last six rounds of their 12 round bout on September 19th, 1999, I wasn’t the least surprised to see him lose.
I had seen De La Hoya do the exact same thing two years earlier in a January 1997, beating a prime Miguel Angel Gonzalez. Like in his fight with Trinidad, De La Hoya built up an early lead over Gonzalez, then decided to run for the next six rounds and ended up taking a beating from Gonzalez and having his right cheek swollen up badly.
It wasn’t just the bad tactics I hated in watching De La Hoya on that night, it was the look of fear in his eyes as he was being pursued around the ring by Gonzalez. I was officially sick of De La Hoya after that and only sparingly watched his other fights.
I noticed that many of them were huge mismatches, with his opponent having essentially no chance even before the fight. Finally, when De La Hoya did fight a good opponent in Trinidad, I knew De La Hoya was going to lose and sure enough, he did.
Against Shane Mosley, De La Hoya did the same thing he did against Gonzalez and Trinidad, namely build up an early lead and then run around in the second half of the fight and get beat. Following the first loss to Mosley, I don’t think De La Hoya was ever the same fighter mentally.
He continued to fight and beat good opponents but not great ones like Mosley, Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Boxing fans, casual ones, that is, didn’t seem to care, but only because they were enamored more by De La Hoya’s mystique rather than the fact that he was no longer the top fighter in his chosen division.
As for De La Hoya’s probable retirement, all I can say is good riddance.
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