By Dan Ambrose: Former Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer says Oscar De La Hoya calling out UFC star Conor McGregor for a boxing match is just a public relations stunt to try and attract interest in his new Golden Boy radio program. De La Hoya isn’t going to be fighting McGregor, according to Schaefer.
Oscar is just trying to drum up interest in his new radio show. As far as De La Hoya saying he’s been in secret training for the last 5 months for a comeback to boxing, Schaefer doesn’t believe it. He says he’s been receiving pictures from people showing De La Hoya out drinking. Schaefer doesn’t see that as a clever way for De La Hoya to be training.
Schaefer says the 44-year-old De La Hoya isn’t serious about wanting to face the 29-year-old McGregor. But even if he is serious, the boxing and MMA world has already seen McGregor beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last August. Why would the fans need to see someone else fight McGregor from the boxing world when Mayweather already did it first? Schaefer sees De La Hoya just being a copy of what Mayweather did, and he feels there’s no point in anyone else fighting McGregor in a boxing ring. It would be redundant at this point, as it’s already been done.
“I think it was more of a PR stunt for his radio show,” said Schaefer to Fighthype. “I have people sending me pictures of him drinking at different places. Sorry, I don’t know if that’s the way you train, but if he wants to have a comeback, then more power to him. I don’t think he’s going to fight Conor McGregor. I think this was to promote his radio show, and I think he did a good job in that respect, because everybody is talking about it,” said Schaefer.
De La Hoya is saying that he’ll knockout McGregor in 2 rounds or less. He says he won’t last 10 rounds against him like he did with Mayweather. De La Hoya didn’t just make the comments about wanting to fight McGregor on his radio program. De La Hoya is mentioning it in other interviews as well, which suggests that he’s serious about wanting to fight McGregor. Why wouldn’t De La Hoya be serious about that fight? He can make a lot of money fighting McGregor. De La Hoya could take the money he makes from the McGregor fight and pour it in his Golden Boy Promotions company to sign bigger names.
“Been there, done that,” said Schaefer when asked about whether the boxing world would get excited about De La Hoya fighting McGregor. “We’ve seen it. The original Mayweather is always better than the copy. So, Mayweather did it and that’s it. Do I need to see Conor McGregor in a boxing ring again? I really don’t. I think there are a lot of fans out there that don’t need to see that,” said Schaefer.
Mayweather vs. McGregor brought in over 4 million buys in their fight on August at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. With that many buys for that fight, it’s quite possible that De La Hoya vs. McGregor could at least bring in one-fourth the amount. 1 million buys would bring De La Hoya a nice little payday. It would also increase his popularity in the boxing world, as a lot of fans that weren’t around when De L Hoya was fighting; they’d see him fight for the first and last time.
“I really believe Oscar said it to promote his radio show, because how can you go and write an open letter to the world about Mayweather-McGregor, and being actually serious to fight him. It was just a promotional stunt for his radio show, and it worked,” said Schaefer.
As many years that De La Hoya has been out of boxing, he might be too old and past it for him to beat a fighter like McGregor. De La Hoya doesn’t look youthful enough to defeat the McGregor that fought Mayweather. Some of the shots that McGregor nailed Mayweather with in the first 4 rounds would be potential knockout blows if they landed on De La Hoya. Manny Pacquiao had De La Hoya punch drunk after 4 rounds in his last fight in 2008. If McGregor were to pummel De La Hoya for 4 rounds, it wouldn’t matter if he gassed out after that point. McGregor would have it easy against a beat up De La Hoya from that point on.
The sparring video of McGregor and Paulie Malingaggi showed that Conor has some boxing skills, and he’s no easy target for a retired fighter. Malignaggi has only been retired since March of this year, and he looked totally shot against McGregor. Imagine what De La Hoya will look like in coming back to boxing after 9 years out of the sport. McGregor would have a great chance of beating De La Hoya.
