De La Hoya wants the top fighters to challenge themselves in 2015

By Boxing News - 12/26/2014 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya says that his resolution is for the top fighters in boxing to challenge themselves to fight the very best competition next year in 2015. Unless De La Hoya is talking about Golden Boy fighters, it’s hard for that to be considered a resolution, because De La Hoya only has control over the fighters in his own stable.

If De La Hoya is serious about wanting the top guys in the sport to fight the best then he needs to start with his own stable. De La Hoya can do that by steering the likes of Amir Khan into facing the best instead of fighting guys like Devon Alexander.

De La Hoya needs to urge Khan to fight Kell Brook, the IBF champion, if he doesn’t get a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr or Manny Pacquiao. It would be nice if Khan fought someone that could really challenge him like Brook if he can’t get a fight against the big names, because at least Khan would break the tune-up cycle that he’s been on since he was scorched by Danny Garcia in 2012.

De La Hoya has a lot of other fighters in his Golden Boy stable like Abner Mares, Danny Garcia, Lucas Matthysse, Keith Thurman, and Marcos Maidana. Of that bunch, De La Hoya needs to suggest to Garcia that he stop fighting guys like Rod Salka and start facing opponents like Viktor Postol, Matthysse [again], Ruslan Provodnikov, Terence Crawford or Lamont Peterson. Letting Garcia fight Salka was a bad fight for the boxing public because it was a really bad product. Showtime should have said no to that fight, but it starts with the promoters of the fighters. De La Hoya should said no to that fight.

Keith Thurman still hasn’t fought anyone good, and that’s obviously one of the reasons why he’s having a problem getting a fight against Mayweather. Thurman just finished fighting 40-year-old Leonard Bundu. Before that, Thurman fought Julio Diaz. De La Hoya needs to use his persuasion to get Thurman to step it up a level and face someone like Kell Brook or at least Shawn Porter.

If De La Hoya is serious about wanting his fighters to face the best then he should be pushing Thurman to fight better opposition because the guy is wasting his career fighting tune-ups. Thurman should have started stepping it up against quality opposition a couple of years ago instead of wasting time against 2nd tier fighters.



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