By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya sent some negative tweets about the outcome of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight last Saturday night, saying that he’s not into a “running style” of fighting.
De La Hoya didn’t point out who precisely he was talking about but it was clear that he was referring to Mayweather, who used a little bit of movement at times to keep Pacquiao from getting his shots off in the fight.
De La Hoya went onto say that this Saturday’s clash between Golden Boy fighter former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and James Kirkland will give boxing fans some “real action.”
“Sorry boxing fans, and I’m just not into the boxing, running style. I like jumping out of my seat because a fight was exciting and the fans got their money’s worth,” De La Hoya said on his twitter. “Can’t wait for some real action next week @Canelo vs @KOKirkland @HBOboxing.”
Some fans would argue that De La Hoya is just disgruntled because Golden Boy didn’t play a part in last Saturday’s mega-clash at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Some would say that De La Hoya used the same type of movement that Mayweather at different times in his career when he was facing a slugger that he didn’t have the desire to stand in front of.
Unfortunately for De La Hoya, there’s not a lot of interest in the Canelo-Kirkland fight like there was for the Mayweather-Pacquiao mega-fight, so it’s really irrelevant what De La Hoya says about the Canelo vs. Kirkland fight being more interesting. If De La Hoya wanted more interest in the 170+ pound Canelo’s next fight, he should have matched him up against WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin instead of the ring rusty and overweight Kirkland. Believe me, fans would be interested in seeing Canelo fight Golovkin. But I don’t think that’s a fight that De La Hoya would be interested in making due to the extremely high risk of Canelo getting knocked out by Golovkin or badly exposed again.
It’s no forgone conclusion that the Canelo-Kirkland fight will an exciting one from start to finish. We are talking about De La Hoya picking Kirkland, a fighter who hasn’t fought in almost two years, out of the bunch to have Canelo fight instead of a relevant, younger top junior middleweight. Kirkland was badly overweight when he signed for the Canelo fight, and he’s had to take the weight off in a hurry.
There are major questions whether the huge weight loss combined with the long layoff from the ring will leave Kirkland at less than his best. Why De La Hoya picked a rusty and out of shape fighter like Kirkland for Canelo to fight instead of an active fighter a lot younger is the big question. I really don’t think this fight is going to be competitive at all. Not because Canelo is the greatest fighter in the 154 pound division, because he’s probably not, but because Kirkland’s near two years out of the ring and the weight that he put on will probably leave him a lot weaker than he was before the long layoff.
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