De La Hoya-Forbes: Failing To Interest Fans

By Boxing News - 05/02/2008 - Comments

de-la-hoya33533.jpgBy Robert Cavender: Through no surprise, this Saturday’s bout, called “The Homecoming” between Oscar De La Hoya (38-5, 30 KOs) and former super featherweight champion Steve Forbes (33-5, 9 KOs) is failing to ignite much interest by fans judging by the lack of discussion about in on the various internet boxing websites in the past week. Here we are one day away, and one would expect there to be fairly substantial amount of discussion about the fight given the short period of time before the bout, yet almost next to zero fans seem to have much more than a passing interest in the fight.

It could be that the fans never were interested in the fight to begin with, seeing it as nothing more than an exhibition bout between a faded star, De La Hoya, and one that never has quite made his mark as of yet. It hasn’t helped De La Hoya’s case that he’s lost many of his recent fights, three out of give to be exact, and the ones that he has won haven’t been over top fighters. Yet with all that, people are expected to be interested in seeing De La Hoya fight, if nothing more than because of the fighter he once was.

Under the microscope, De La Hoya’s career has mostly been uneven, with him winning some good bouts early in his career, but then losing many of his most important bouts in the mid-point of his career. Even in his prime, he struggled to beat a badly faded Pernell Whitaker near the end of his career in 1997. De La Hoya fought tentatively and barely looked to have won the fight over the aged Whitaker, who by this point was well past his prime.

De La Hoya’s choice of opponent, a smaller Steve Forbes, is another thing that makes De La Hoya look bad. Why precisely does he have to take on a fighter much smaller than himself? Believe me, it wouldn’t look nearly as bad if De La Hoya hadn’t lost many of his recent fights, appearing unable to fight at the top of his game against top level opposition. Add to that the fact that De La Hoya had previously shown interest in fighting Ricky Hatton, who fights at junior welterweight and is positively small in comparison to the tall 5’10” De La Hoya, who fights not one but two weight classes above Hatton.

The same goes for Forbes, who up until recently fought as a junior welterweight, but who had his best years of his career as a super featherweight (130 lbs). Regardless of the fact that De La Hoya is calling this a tune-up for his bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr., it doesn’t erase the fact that De La Hoya is fighting a much smaller, non-champion. It’s just no appealing to me, and clearly not with the other fans judging from the lack of response. I guess you could even add the ignorant main stream fans, the ones with little knowledge of the sport other than a passing understanding of boxing.

Even they, it seems, have little interest in this fight. It was from that pool that De La Hoya attracted many of the fans for his bout with Mayweather last year. Few real boxing fans gave De La Hoya even a remote chance of beating Mayweather, and as it turned out the fight went pretty much as expected with De La Hoya looking decent in the early rounds and then quickly fading in the later rounds and losing. This time around, there’s few people giving any chance to De La Hoya, most likely given his string of recent losses.

Obviously his fight with the smaller Forbes is something to interrupt his losses and give him a sense of credibility, but given his opponent, a junior welterweight, it doesn’t accomplish the feat of making De La Hoya more worthy as an opponent for Mayweather. At this point, De La Hoya doesn’t deserve another fight with Mayweather, and no matter how many boring fights against opponents like Forbes that De La Hoya fights, it will likely not budge too many people’s opinions.