Starting off my Oscar Speech with a “You have nothing to Prove, but….”

By Boxing News - 06/25/2015 - Comments

delahoya789By Shaun La: Oscar De La Hoya left professional boxing with an exit that made his hardcore fans concerned when he was going thru the battering and energetic Manny Pacaquiao’s heavy punching offense. Yet, Oscar had nothing to be ashamed of by losing his last professional boxing bout.

A champion and marketable boxer who always showed respect to his opposition, while acknowledging the sport of boxing for allowing him to be financially wealthy and represent the coolly marketable name, The Golden Boy with a prestige aura. He went from the Olympics to millions of dollars being contractually paid for his boxing services—-what else is missing?

It is hard not to like Oscar, even if you want to admit that he lost to FĂ©lix Trinidad fair and square or that the pair of Shane Mosley bouts could have went his way—even if you want to say that Felix Sturm should have won or been marked out as a DRAW. As a boxing fan, you have to respect Oscar’s contribution to boxing as a former champion as well as a consistent boxing promoter—life after boxing.

So why does the sport of boxing need Oscar to make a comeback and in a rematch fashion against Floyd Mayweather Jr? Of course, Floyd Jr. has the name and powerful position to help sell this bout; however, it won’t come near the record setting numbers that he and Manny shared. There is a business side to boxing that can be very one-sided, especially when boxers want to stand on top of the A-Side mountain top and demand that you high-five the stars in the sky, while training to make a weight and in the meantime, wear the gloves that I want you to wear—-then urinate in a cup, give up blood during random drug-testings. Oh, let us not forget, you have to promote this mega-fight 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I may have an issue with how Floyd does his matchmaking, but I completely salute the man’s business sense.

Floyd does not make pre-fight negotiations easy for his opposition. Boxing mental games would be his calling card that he dials out twice a year.

Why would Oscar entertain this? I am sure that weight would be an issue (Floyd would decide if this fight would be a catch-weight or in an official weight-class with his various titles on the line) and even though boxers will always know how to throw a punch and could have conditioned muscles in their stomach, arms and legs, stepping up to such a huge bout on a mainstream scale in such a small window of time—these essential factors would not do anything for Oscar’s chances to win. The both of them could make a lot of money, and maybe after this potential bout, their positions on the Forbes list may ascend. Money counts, and it can add up into huge bragging rights as the wealthiest professional boxer ever, I guess that there could be an intangible Cash Belt that could be on the line. We would all know that a sure bet would be that Floyd Jr. would get the bulk of the revenue and up-front money from this bout. What would the name of this rematch be called? “Hello/Goodbye? Floyd’s Final Fight, Oscar’s Comeback” Again, why would Oscar entertain this?

Trust me, I am an optimist. To see Oscar make a comeback, defeat Floyd Jr. convincingly and ride off into the sunset to his boxing promotional empirical magical carpet would be the narrative that if this were to happen and produced into a major motion-picture film—it would win an Oscar award.

Unless Oscar has been privately training since last year and he had some insightful instinct to see that the resultant from Manny vs. Floyd would afford him a chess move to get a rematch with the winner, could the playing field be remotely close—not even, but close; otherwise, this potential match-up in any other unprepared sense would be dull. Floyd Jr. would use his conditioned stamina and counter-punching to take Oscar out of the fight. The official scorecards would reflect a dedicated effort on Oscar’s behalf, but if you do not knockout Floyd Jr, the chances of winning a split or majority decision at the hands of scoring from the three official ringside judges in Las Vegas, Nevada would be slimmer than the width of college-ruled white notebook paper.

Boxing is the hardest individual sport in the World. Floyd Jr. may be a lot of different representations for different people, from Money to owning a big ego, but he is smart enough to know that Oscar would not be able to beat him by training for 10 to 12 weeks.

If this bout does happen between these two famous boxers, I would tell the boxing world the same thing that I would always retort, which is, “Oscar, you have nothing to prove, the boxing world respects your legacy.” But whom am I? A boxing fan that would watch their rematch and just maybe if Oscar lands a combo, win six or seven rounds, I might slide to the edge of my seat and believe that he has a chance to win. Boxing is such a complicated sport, because we might not like a fight because of how it may sound when spoken out aloud or how it may look on paper, but if the reality of a bout starts to cook inside of the ring with punches and good action, we will sit there, hungry for more and not blinking while feeding our minds with the Sweet Science.



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