By Jason Kim: The rumor that’s been circulating around about Oscar De La Hoya coming back to fight Ricky Hatton has now been declared false by none other than De La Hoya himself. The rumor started this past week coming from an English news site, who reported that Robert Diaz, the matchmaker for Golden Boy Promotions, was interested in putting together a bout between Ricky Hatton and De La Hoya. This got a lot of fans excited about the fight, because it would seem like an interesting fight given the popularity of Hatton and De La Hoya.
In an article by Dan Rafael of ESPN, De La Hoya had this to say about fighting Hatton:
“I’m f****** pissed off. Me fighting Ricky Hatton is a bunch of baloney. Not true, a million percent. They can pay me all the money they want in the world, but I’m not coming back for no money. I have no idea where that stuff comes from. They quoted Roberto Diaz, but we spoke to him and he said, ‘No, I didn’t say that.’ I was shocked by it. I am a happily retired man.”
This is really too bad because both De La Hoya and Hatton were destroyed by Manny Pacquiao in their last fights, and it would be sad if that’s how they’re remembered by boxing fans. By facing each other, at least one of them would be able to end their careers with a big name on their resume. Hatton is still relatively young at 31, and is capable of winning this fight and moving onto some big fights if he rededicates himself and keeps in shape rather than ballooning up in weight between fights like he’s been doing.
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In other news, the talked about fight between 41-year-old Roy Jones Jr. and top heavyweight contender Tomasz Adamek won’t be happening next year. Main Events promoter Kathy Duva said that Adamek and Jones met recently, but there is no plans of matching them up against each other in a fight next year. Adamek is facing 2nd tier heavyweight Vinny Maddalone on December 9th, and it might look really had if Adamek were to fight Jones after that. Adamek recently fought 38-year-old Michael Grant and struggled badly against him.
Adamek needs to be facing top fighters rather than B class heavyweights or smaller, older fighters like Roy Jones Jr. if he wants to generate interest among fans for a potential big money fight with one of the Klitschko brothers next year. It probably doesn’t matter who Adamek faces, because he’s going to get taken apart by the Klitschkos either way. But if he wants fans to see this as a fight that’s worth viewing, he might want to strongly consider upping the level of his opposition a couple of notches and try to look a little better than he did in the Grant fight. Adamek will likely have his way with Maddalone, but that really say much because Maddalone is a 2nd tier heavyweight and not the kind of opposition that can really challenge Adamek.
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