By William MacKay: For a fighter as popular and as wealthy as Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs), he sure has had a bad week. Not only did he lose out on a huge potential multi-million dollar payday when his September 20th opponent Floyd Mayweather Jr. abruptly retired from boxing, but he then had his second choice Ricky Hatton flatly refuse to fight him. Most people would naturally assume that Hatton either much have rocks in his head or took too many head shots in his recent struggle against Juan Lazcano. After all, what fighter would turn down a monstrous payday against De La Hoya in order to fight IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi, a fighter that only boxing insiders have any clue to who he is.
Nevertheless, it’s not over yet, and De La Hoya may end up persuading Hatton to take the fight after all. De La Hoya isn’t one of the best businessmen in boxing for nothing, and once he gets talking to Hatton, I’d be willing to bet he’ll get him to come around. Short of that, De La Hoya has a lot of other choices, though many of them are far less appealing for obvious reasons than Hatton. The first names that jump out at me are welterweight champions Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto, both of which are fighting it out on July 26th for Cotto’s WBA welterweight title. However, one of them will be eliminated by virtue of the loss (unless it’s a draw, of course), but even the winner has to do it in an impressive manner or risk losing a shot in the De La Hoya sweepstakes.
I, for one, highly doubt that De La Hoya would be interested in either of them at this point, mostly because they’re both tough fighters, the type that would force De La Hoya to fight much harder than he’s had to in the last several years. I doubt that De La Hoya, with all his money and frequent lengthy spells in between fights, would want to take a on a grueling fight like this with either of them. A bout against any of them, however, especially against Cotto, would be a huge bout and would be a good going away present for De La Hoya. Still, I’m not holding my breath on De La Hoya fighting either of them, not now, probably not ever. Too dangerous.
De La Hoya has mentioned Manny Pacquiao in the past, talking about him in glowing mouthwatering terms, as if was a starving man talking about eating a juicy steak. It seems laughable to most people, me included with them, the thought of the tall welterweight/light middleweight De La Hoya fighting Pacquiao, who fights at 130 lbs, which seems to cry out as being unfair. Yet, De La Hoya is smart enough to know that the boxing public at large would still buy into the bout, just because of the prospect of seeing a fighter as skilled as Pacquiao going up against De La Hoya, arguably one of the best fighters in boxing over the past 15 years.
De La Hoya, 35, could rest assured that he’d likely be able to escape the fight without being knocked out, although I still think he’d come up short in the win column. Pacquiao, though small, is no Steve Forbes and would probably give De La Hoya fits with his speed and flurries on the inside. Pacquiao would be like a smaller, faster and equally powerful version of Floyd Mayweather.
There are a few fighters that have a small chance at facing De La Hoya, like Sergio Mora, Shane Mosley and Felix Trinidad. The problem with each, however, is they’re all limited in some manner and not popular enough for De La Hoya to waste his time on. Mora, who recently defeated Vernon Forrest this past weekend to win the WBC light middleweight title, is a tricky fighter who specializes in making his opponents look bad. It’s doubtful that De La Hoya would want to face a fighter like that, especially considering that Mora isn’t all that well know with most boxing fans.
Sure, he won The Contender series a couple of years ago, but most fans have long ago forgotten that. As for Mosley, De La Hoya has already faced him twice before and lost both times. He’s a person friend and business partner of De La Hoya, which probably makes it less appealing for De La Hoya. As for Trinidad, he’s coming off of three defeats out of his last five fights, with two of them coming back to back in his last two bouts. Need I say more about his chances?
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