De La Hoya likes his chances against the top 154 lb fighters minus Canelo

By Boxing News - 10/28/2012 - Comments

Image: De La Hoya likes his chances against the top 154 lb fighters minus CaneloBy Dan Ambrose: 39-year-old former six division world champion Oscar De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KO’s) still likes his chances against most of the fighters at junior middleweight with the exception of fellow Golden Boy Promotions fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

De La Hoya, who will be turning 40 next February, said on his twitter page “I’m really confident I can do some damage to any 54 pounder in the world, except Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.”

That’s kind of hard to believe given that De La Hoya had lost four out of his last seven fights when he retired in 2008. One of those wins was a controversial decision over Felix Sturm in which De La Hoya got completely dominated and beaten up badly. Call it five losses out of his last seven fights and it would be a little more accurate. I think De La Hoya is dreaming and not seeing things clearly.

Here are the top junior middleweights that De La Hoya presumably would be doing damage to if he came back:

Alfredo Angulo
Erislandy Lara
Vanes Martirosyan
Austin Trout
James Kirkland
Delvin Rodriguez
Carlos Molina
Cornelius Bundrage
Miguel Cotto
Zauerbek Baysangurov
Sergiy Dzinziruk
Demetrius Andrade
Sergey Rabchenko
Gabriel Rosado
Carlos Quintana
Floyd Mayweather Jr
Lukas Konecny

I can’t see De La Hoya beating any of those fighters at his age, even some of the weaker ones from this bunch. These are mostly younger guys that are fighting on a high level right now, and De La Hoya would be coming back into the ring from a four year layoff following an 8th round stoppage loss to Manny Pacquiao in 2008. De La Hoya looked shot in that fight and I can’t see him improving after four years out of the ring. Just taking the weight off to get down to 154 would be a major ordeal for De La Hoya and I can see him coming into the fight weight drained and looking terrible.

De La Hoya would likely not only lose to all of the top 154 pound fighters but lose by knockout. He was a great fighter at one time but he’s old now and his main asset – his hand speed – wouldn’t be a factor for him anymore because of his age.



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