Kelly Swanson: Okay.
Oscar De La Hoya: That was a joke.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Marcus Henry of News Day.
Marcus Henry: Okay obviously we all know that you want to win this fight but outside of winning it, what do you hope to get out of this? Like is there any part of your game you’re looking to improve on or maybe a style change? What specifically are you hoping to get out of it?
Oscar De La Hoya: Absolutely the style change that we’re going to bring into this fight. See one thing that people don’t know is that I can box on my toes and I can move elusively and, you know, I can put my hands down and pop my jab from my waist side and I can move around and I can do all that stuff. I just haven’t. And, you know, in this fight we’re going to do a lot of different things.
You know, I mean, obviously the one thing that I’m going to – that’s going to benefit me the most is relaxing in the ring and having fun and staying with the guy, you know, no matter who it is. And so, you know, this fight is going to benefit me a lot.
You know, obviously with Stevie having Floyd Jr.’s style, not quite that similar but to a certain extent. Also I can work on things, you know, Stevie Forbes stays right in front of you. He moves his feet quite a bit and stays in the center of the ring but he is – he’ll stay in front of you and fight. So I think it’s going to be very beneficial when I step inside that ring with Steve.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Rich Bergeron of Fight News Unlimited.
Rich Bergeron: First I was wondering if you could comment on what happened with your plans to get into promoting MMA with Affliction and secondly I was wondering if any of the business aspects of your promotional work create any kind of distraction in preparing for a fight. Do you want me to …
Oscar De La Hoya: Right, well we decided that we are going to focus all our energies in promoting boxing. Boxing is the thing that we have to focus on because there’s so much room for growth. The potential is enormous and we definitely want to capitalize and have all our focuses and energy in taking boxing to another level when it comes to publicity, when it comes to branding, when it comes to attracting new sponsors.
You know, so it’s, you know, it was very crucial for us to make sure we have our focuses on boxing because we still haven’t even gotten to where we want to get. And, you know, when it comes to maximizing the potential that boxing has, you know, boxing is a sport that has a lot of room for growth and we have to make sure we focus on that. And we’ll still be working with Affliction obviously. I mean, Affliction is a great brand. Affliction has done a tremendous job in promoting fights, promoting boxing, and, you know, Affliction is very much interested in working with Golden Boy.
Richard Schaefer: Maybe I can just – this is Richard, if I can just add to that. We don’t rule out eventually to get involved in mixed martial arts but the time is not now. I think mixed martial arts business is going through some very rough patches and some very I think transition issues.
I don’t know for those of you who follow the market, but there were recently two SEC filings from two of the companies which actually are publicly held that raised doubt as to the validity of if they can continue as ongoing concerns. So we sort of like want to see what’s going to happen with the sport. We want to see how everything is going to shape out and maybe at one point we will enter the mixed martial arts business and diversify our business.
But right now Oscar is absolutely right. There is going to be a lot of news coming out to boxing. Our focus is 100% on boxing and actually on Saturday, May 3 we will have a press conference at noon from the media hotel where we are going to make two major announcements as it relates to the sport of boxing and Golden Boy. So stay tuned on that and we just love the sport of boxing and we have barely – as Oscar said, we have barely scratched the surface.
Rich Bergeron: All right and the second part of that question about the distraction?
Oscar De La Hoya: Well there’s no distraction whatsoever. I mean, you know, when I’m in training it’s solely training. You know, I have such a competent team, you know, with Richard Schaefer leading the army, you know, he’s a person who is always on top of everything and making sure that everything is done right.
And you know, the whole Golden Boy team is, you know, sometimes doesn’t even need no, you know, they don’t even talk to me or give me a call to get some answers or, you know, they know what they are doing. And, you know, therefore I can be at ease in my training and just focus on all my energies on my upcoming fight.
Oscar De La Hoya: ((Spanish Spoken)).
Jairo Giraldo: ((Spanish Spoken)).
Oscar De La Hoya: ((Spanish Spoken)).
Oscar De La Hoya: The question was for obviously, you know, what happened with Felix Sturm and, you know, these type of opponents, you know, with the fight of their life, you know, have you prepared yourself for this fight here with Steve Forbes. And I go yeah, of course. You know, this is – obviously I don’t want that happening anymore, you know, with what happened with Felix Sturm. Had I been in shape Felix Sturm, can I knock him out? Absolutely.
So, you know, it’s obviously my fault that I didn’t get in shape for that fight but, you know, it’s never ever going to happen again. I have learned my lesson and, you know, that’s the last thing that I would ever want to happen now at this stage of my career is not be prepared for anybody. So, you know, I’m giving more than 100% for these final three fights and people will see that.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Carlos Gonzalez of Primera Hora.
Carlos Gonzalez: ((Spanish Spoken)).
Oscar De La Hoya: ((Spanish Spoken)).
Oscar De La Hoya: Well he was asking me about what this December fight would be and, you know, I told him I never – you can never count nobody out. You can never, you know, scratch anybody off the list. You know, anything can happen. I mean, you know, I mean, obviously beating Stevie Forbes which I intend to do and beating Floyd Mayweather which I intend to do, you know, who will my December fight be?