By Allan Fox: A puffy-looking Oscar De La Hoya said on Tuesday that he’s thinking of coming out of retirement for a fight against a top welterweight. That was a surprise given that De La Hoya is now 47, hasn’t fought in 12 years, and he looks unhealthy.
Oscar says he wants to wait on the 53-year-old Mike Tyson to observe how he looks when he fights an exhibition match. De La Hoya doesn’t want to battle Tyson. He just wants to see how he performs at his age so he can either use it as motivation to start his comeback or decide against it.
People age differently, and Mike Tyson has arguably aged better than De La Hoya in terms of his reflexes and physique. De La Hoya now has a Dad’s body and the hairline to match.
De La Hoya didn’t look, or sound energized
During the interview, De La Hoya shockingly said, “I can still beat anybody I step in the ring with.” Unfortunately, De La Hoya didn’t elaborate on what type of opponents he was talking about when he said he could beat “anybody.”
In an interview with Ring TV, De La Hoya looked entirely subdued, speaking in almost a whisper as he casually spoke of wanting to come out of retirement. It seemed so unbelievable what De La Hoya was saying his body language, voice, and mannerisms didn’t match the words that were coming out of his mouth.
One could believe what De La Hoya was saying about him coming out of retirement if he was in shape and looked healthy. He didn’t look like someone that should get back in the ring. De La Hoya is not a young 47.
“I’m obviously not in fighting shape yet, to go 12 rounds, but I’m sure that I can get there. We’ll see,” said De La Hoya to Ring TV.
Does Ryan Garcia figure into De La Hoya’s comeback?
Some boxing fans believe that the timing of De La Hoya talking about making a comeback is a way for him to distract from the problems that he’s having with young star Ryan Garcia. The highly popular 21-year-old 135-pound contender King Ryan recently rejected a $200,000 offer to fight on Golden Boy Promotions’ July 4 card on DAZN. The opponents that were rumored to have been offered to Ryan Garcia were Hector Tanajara and Mercito Gesta.
Ryan wanted to fight Jorge Linares, but he couldn’t get in the country because of the pandemic. However, with the money that Golden Boy was offering to Ryan, it’s unlikely that Linares would have agreed to fight him if his purse was equally small.
Is De La Hoya talking about coming back to distract the boxing world from Ryan Garcia being an unhappy camper? Hopefully, that’s not the case. Oscar is wasting his time if he’s trying to distract fans from paying attention to the grumblings from King Ryan. He wants to be paid well for his fights, and he seems to be dissatisfied with the way Golden Boy is moving him so slowly against lesser opposition.
Ryan is ready to take on the top contenders and world champions at this point in his three-year pro career, and he doesn’t want to continue to be matched against the fodder-level opposition.
If De La Hoya is jealous of the attention that Ryan is getting with his six million followers on social media, his talk of wanting to make a comeback makes sense.
But it would be a crazy thing if that’s the reason for De La Hoya coming back because he’s not going to be able to compete against the 21-year-old Ryan Garcia and suddenly have millions of teenyboppers following him.
Oscar says he’ll beat ANYBODY
“My muscles were so lean. I was a walking zombie when I stepped into the ring. And I still have reflexes, I still go to the gym every so often. I can still beat anybody I step in the ring with,” said De La Hoya.
Oscar did resemble a zombie after making weight for his last fight against Manny Pacquiao in 2008, but that was his fault. De La Hoya is the one that made the calculated mistake of agreeing to a 145-pound catchweight to fight Pacquiao.
De La Hoya wants to fight a top welterweight, who would need to come up to 154 to face him. There are two problems with this. One, De La Hoya doesn’t look like he’s capable of making 154 without being as weight drained as he was when he made 145 for the Pacquiao fight in 2008.
Secondly, I would be worried about De La Hoya if he fought a top fighter now because we don’t know what would happen to him. De La Hoya might keel over if he exerts himself against a top-level welterweight. With De La Hoya’s dad’s body and the unhealthy look to him, he could get hurt.
De La Hoya’s appearance has changed
When you look at interviews with De La Hoya from a year ago and compare it to how he looks now, it’s almost like a different person. Oscar appears to have aged poorly in the last year, and unknown what has caused this acceleration.
Whatever it is, De La Hoya needs to take it easy and slow his life down. Is it stress getting to him? Only he knows the cause.
Some positives could come from De La Hoya coming back for a single fight. If De La Hoya can convince Floyd Mayweather Jr or Manny Pacquiao to fight him, the boxing world will get excited, and De La Hoya will make a lot of money.
Oscar could use the spotlight from his comeback to build interest in his Golden Boy fighters in his table by bringing his best guys along for interviews and including them on the undercard. So we’d be talking about Ryan Garcia and Vergil Ortiz Jr.
