By Dan Ambrose: For the past several weeks, 42-year-old Oscar De La Hoya has been talking about wanting to restart his boxing career after a seven-year layoff. De La Hoya is now at the point where he says he’s 50-50 in his decision to come back or not.
What’s troubling though is he says he only wants to fight the best and specifically names Gennady Golovkin and Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the guys he wants to face. Considering that De La Hoya looked absolutely shot when he retired in 2008 and lost 3 out of his last 4 fights, it seems more like a comeback that would be done for the wrong reasons.
Instead of De La Hoya wanting to comeback in order to just compete and half fun, he appears to be looking to comeback with a goal in mind. If De La Hoya is really serious about his comeback, then he should prove to the fans that he’s willing to work his way up to the bigger fights instead of him saying that he wants Mayweather or Golovkin. To some fans it looks like De La Hoya just wants a payday because it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s not going to fight any opponents to get him ready for the big fights.
“I have to make sure I am fighting the very best,” De La Hoya said to ESPN.com. “It’s got to be worth my while but this is very serious. I don’t have to come back for financial reasons, or for the lights and glamour. The only reason I would come back is because I miss the competition of fighting the very best.”
If De La Hoya isn’t coming back for financial reasons, then perhaps he can donate the money that he gets for the Mayweather or Golovkin fights to charity. That would be a good way for De La Hoya to prove to fans that he’s not just coming back to get the big money that he’d receive for a fight against one or both of those stars.
As bad as De La Hoya looked in 2008, he’d be easily beaten by Mayweather and Golovkin if that version of De La Hoya faced them right now. But with De La Hoya being out of the ring for seven years, and with him physically aging to the point where he looks elderly, I don’t think he could last even one round against Golovkin or Mayweather unless they carried him by treating the fight as an exhibition bout instead of a real fight. If they had special pillow-sized gloves made for the bout and had De La Hoya wearing head gear, it might be a decent exhibition bout, but who would want to pay to see something like that?
“I feel amazing in my life right now – I have so much motivation,” De La Hoya said. “I am so hungry and so determined. My plan long term is Golden Boy – with me personally, my family, my business. I am young, I am healthy and I feel great. 42 is the new 32.”
For some people 42 is the new 32, but De La Hoya looks like an old 42, and there’s no way he looks like a 32-year-old. I think De La Hoya looks closer to 50 then he does 42 right, and I don’t think it would be in the best interest of Mayweather, Golovkin or the boxing public for De La Hoya to return to the ring. I think it would end quickly and badly for De La Hoya. If Golovkin or Mayweather destroy De La Hoya in one or two rounds, there are going to be a lot of angry boxing fans who will want their money back. I think that would be bad for the sport.
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