By Allan Fox: 39-year-old former six division world champion Oscar De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KO’s) has ruled out a comeback because he feels he can’t fight at the same level he once could in his prime.

De La Hoya said this on his twitter today “I think about fighting again every single day. I love boxing. It kills me that I wouldn’t be able to compete at the highest level and the very best. Therefore, I wills stay retired for good.”

De La Hoya is like a lot of fighters that have spent the better part of their lives boxing. Once it’s over they can’t stop thinking about still fighting. De La Hoya is one of the few that made a ton of money to where he doesn’t need to continue fighting. Had De La Hoya not made a lot of money, his career would have likely been much different than it turned out to be.

We likely wouldn’t have seen all the huge gaps between fights like we did in the last four years of De La Hoya’s career. From 2005 to 2008, De La Hoya fought only fought four times, losing two of them.

De La Hoya wasn’t a shot fighter when he lost to Manny Pacquiao in his final fight of his career in 2008. De La Hoya was a weight drained and rusty fighter that wasn’t active enough to keep his skills sharp. He further compounded this problem by going on a crazy diet to make 147, a weight that De la Hoya hadn’t fought at in seven years.

In hindsight, the decision to go on a diet and to fight at 147 lbs was a huge mistake on De La Hoya’s part and they directly led to him performing a lot worse than he would have had he simply eaten correctly and said no to fighting Pacquiao at 147. De La Hoya was too nice when it came to the negotiations for the fight and should have been firm about not taking the fight at 147.