By Chris Williams: If Oscar De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KOs) is serious about wanting to make a comeback at the age of 42, he might just have a dance partner for his first fight of his comeback. Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) has taken an interest in fighting De La Hoya, and he’s willing to face him in September if he’s game.
Mayweather previously beat De La Hoya eight years ago in 2007 in a fight that generated 2.2 million pay-per-view buys. That fight set a record at the time that stood until recently when Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao shattered the ring in a fight that is said to have brought in an estimated 5 million PPV buys.
There still isn’t an official total yet for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight and it’s unclear when or if the numbers will ever be released.
“I seen the little thing Oscar talking about he’s coming back. I mean, you know, I mean, if he wants to, we can rock and roll in September,” Mayweather said to Fighthype.com. “We can do it at 54. He already know that. He said he wanted the rematch, so if Oscar want it, he can get it in September,” Mayweather said.
De La Hoya recently revealed that he’s interested in making a comeback, and that he only wants to fight the best. De La Hoya said he wanted to fight WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin in his first fight of his comeback. However, in the past week, De La Hoya has gone quiet about the subject, and said very little about it. Fans have taken De La Hoya’s silence on the subject to mean that he doesn’t want any part of the hard hitting Golovkin, which you can’t really blame De La Hoya for.
If Mayweather is serious about wanting to fight De La Hoya again, it won’t be surprising if De La Hoya jumps in right away and accepts his offer. With the kind of money De La Hoya could make in a second fight against Mayweather, he could pump that money into his promotional company Golden Boy Promotions to use the money to sign better fighters without having to put a big dent on his own nest egg that he’s been living off of since he retired from the sport.
Mayweather needs a big name for his September fight and the pickings are awfully slim for him right now. The top guys that are being considered are Amir Khan and Kell Brook, neither of which are known by casual boxing fans in the U.S. Unless Mayweather can get someone like De La Hoya or Miguel Cotto to fight him, he’s probably going to wind up with someone like Khan, and that’s obviously not good for Mayweather’s PPV numbers. Khan couldn’t even sellout the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Mayweather needs a guy like De La Hoya to make his September fight a huge success. Even if Mayweather chooses to continue fighting next year, he would do well to have an opponent like De La Hoya in the ring with him in September.
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