Should De La Hoya Retire?

By Boxing News - 11/14/2007 - Comments

With Oscar De La Hoya’s (38-5, 30 KOs) recent announcement of his intentions to fight on May 3rd, 2008, I thought this would be a good time to discuss whether or not De La Hoya should hang up the gloves. For me, I’m not precisely sure why he continues to fight, since he reportedly has a fortune of over a $100 million, and clearly doesn’t need the money. If he was still a successful fighter, I could understand why he would want to continue boxing. However, he’s lost three out of his last five fights, and realistically he should have lost a fourth fight to Felix Sturm.

Why, then, does De La Hoya persist in fighting when all indications are there that it’s time for him to retire. In visiting various forums on the net, many posters seem to think it’s greed on De La Hoya’s part. Certainly he’s still being incredibly well paid for each of his fight, as he makes millions in mostly losing efforts. In contrast, a fighter like Holyfield gets much less per fight and has a reputation of being shot. How come the public hasn’t caught on the De La Hoya’s decline in ability?

It almost seems as if the boxing public still thinks that De La hoya is a champion, which can only be the reason why they’d continue to want to see him handpick opponents time after time, regardless of the results. It appears that only the knowledgeable boxing fans are aware that De La Hoya is past his prime and should retire. I suppose that’s why he continues to fight, since he’s got so many people rooting him on as if he were still young. Normally 34 isn’t considered old, but for De La Hoya it seems incredibly old, almost as if he’s at least five years older than his started age.

I suppose it’s just genetics, but he hasn’t helped himself by ballooning up in weight in the past couple of years which make him look older. Lately, he’s taken off some of the weight, yet he still looks old for his age. Realistically, he needs to get a clue and do himself a favor, because there’s few, if any, top fighters that he can beat at this point in his career and he’s only going to further embarrass himself by getting beaten repeatedly.