By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya is asking his fans on social media what they think of the idea of a rematch between him and Felix Trinidad. The ‘Golden Boy’ De La Hoya suffered his first loss to ‘Tito’ Trinidad (42-3, 35 KOs) 21-years-ago on September 18, 1999, in losing a controversial 12 round majority decision.
The scores were 115-114, 115-113 for Trinidad, and 114-114 even. In hindsight, it’s easy to see why the judges favored Trinidad as the winner, as De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KOs) gassed out after five rounds, and he looked tired and afraid the last seven rounds.
Trinidad is one of the greatest Puerto Rican fighters in the history of the sport, and he accomplished a lot in his career. A lot of Trinidad’s loyal boxing fans might not be happy to see him return to the ring at his age. He doesn’t look young, and he would have so much weight to lose.
Fans negative on De La Hoya facing Trinidad
The boxing fans on Twitter are overwhelmingly against the 47-year-old De La Hoya coming out of retirement to face the chubby Trinidad, who looks elderly at this stage in his life. The 47-year-old Trinidad has put on A LOT of weight since he retired in 2008. Trinidad retired after losing to Roy Jones Jr, who was a shot fighter by that point in his career.
For Trinidad to come back to face De La Hoya at 154, he would need to lose a lot of weight. It wouldn’t be surprising if Trinidad required to trim down 50 pounds to get to 154, and he probably wouldn’t be healthy.
De La Hoya recently said in an interview last week with RingTV that he was thinking of making at a comeback against a “top” fighter from the 147-pound division.
“I have been working out, I have been training, I have been staying in shape. 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 last week in an interview with Ring TV.
He wanted the possible fight to take place in the 154-lb division. But it’s unclear if De La Hoya has changed his mind about wanting to fight a young active fighter from the welterweight division. If De La Hoya is trying to stir up a fight with Trinidad, that’s a much different situation.
Who would love to see this fight again? #DeLaHoyaTrinidad #Rematch pic.twitter.com/38TQmM6llB
— Oscar De La Hoya (@OscarDeLaHoya) June 28, 2020
De La Hoya vs. Trinidad just looks like a money-grab fight and not a serious one that will show anything. It seems like a wrong-headed move on De La Hoya’s part unless the overriding reason for him wanting the Trinidad match is to make a lot of cash.
De La Hoya vs. Trinidad could do well on PPV
De La Hoya facing Tito would probably be an exhibition match because it’s unbelievable that any Commission would sanction a fight between those two as counting as a professional record. But then again, the Nevada Commission approved the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Conor McGregor fight in 2017 as counting as a professional match.
McGregor had ZERO experience in boxing at the time, and yet it was counted as a professional fight for the record books. If a Commission was willing to sanction the Mayweather-McGregor mismatch, then they’ll probably do the same for a De La Hoya vs. Felix Trinidad fight.
Sadly, De La Hoya-Trinidad probably will do good numbers on pay-per-view, but you hate to think of what this could lead to with a slew of follow-up old-timers fights. If De La Hoya beats Trinidad, we could see him calling out a number of his past opponents, who are also old. You imagine all the more former De La Hoya opponents, many of which in their late 40s and early 50s, agreeing to face him.
Why didn’t Oscar rematch Trinidad years ago?
What’s troubling is De La Hoya never attempted to avenge his loss to Trinidad, which looks terrible in the eyes of fans. Instead, De La Hoya moved on and retired nine years later in 2008 as a former six-division world champion. However, most of the world titles De La Hoya won during his career were before he fought Trinidad.
You can argue that the loss to Trinidad was the beginning of a long slide downward for the ‘Golden Boy’ Oscar De La Hoya. Shortly after that loss, De La Hoya was beaten by Shane Mosley in a 12 round split decision defeat in June 2000.
Once again, De La Hoya gassed out in the later rounds, and Mosley took advantage of it to win the fight. Conditioning issues is the same thing that happened to De La Hoya in his loss to Trinidad. When Oscar’s stamina abandoned him in the second half of the match, Mosley came on strong and swept the championship rounds to win.
As overweight as Trinidad has looked, De La Hoya might be able to beat him. Just what a victory over Trinidad now would prove is anyone’s guess. If De La Hoya couldn’t beat Trinidad in the zenith of his career at age 26, what’s the point in facing him 21 years later? Of course, if De La Hoya is just looking at the Trinidad fight as a way of bringing in easy money, then it makes perfect sense to fight him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGS0XdwIbZ4
Younger fans won’t be interested
This fight will make money, but it’s not the type of contest that will bring in one million pay-per-view buys. Younger boxing fans won’t likely be eager to pay to see two middle-aged over-the-hill fighters in De La Hoya and Trinidad fighting on PPV.
The problem with selling a fight of that nature is the fact that the younger boxing fans had never seen De La Hoya or Trinidad fight before, as they were too young to watch them during their careers. The people that will want to watch De La Hoya fight Trinidad will mostly be guys in their 40s to 80s.
I’m not sure if enough of them will be eager to put their money into paying to see these guys fight during the pandemic. It’s not the right time to be selling old-timer exhibition fights on pay-per-view.
De La Hoya-Trinidad 2 is a match-up that should have taken place when the economy was booming, and not when there are millions of unemployed people due to the damage that the pandemic has done to the U.S economy.