By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya is putting in the hard work training for his July 3 pay-per-view exhibition match on Triller Fight Club, and he’s still got a lot of time to trim down. The 48-year-old De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KOs) says “the s*** is getting real” with his training.
It’s good to see De La Hoya losing his double chin that he’s been carrying around for the last decade.
Since we still don’t know who De La Hoya will fight in his exhibition, the bleep is definitely NOT “getting real.”
We don’t even know if this will be an exhibition at this point, as Oscar may decide to make it real gainst a top fighter, be it from the boxing world or MMA.
There’s only a tiny handful of MMA fighters with any boxing ability, but De La Hoya should have no problems making easy work of whoever is picked out. The chances of De La Hoya fighting a current UFC star are slim and none.
Dana White, the UFC president, would need to agree to De La Hoya fighting one of his guys. There’s no advantage for the UFC to have their stars made a fool of by 48-year-old De La Hoya.
Also, the money they make fighting De La Hoya might cause them to retire from the UFC if they cannot make similar cash.
For the fans’ sake and for his future pay-per-view events, De La Hoya needs an opponent that will push him and not flop after getting hit.
Oscar’s is expected to be someone pooled from MMA. They’re not going to take a chance by putting De La Hoya in with a current or former boxer, and it’s easy to see why.
De La Hoya hasn’t fought in 13 years since his knockout defeat against Manny Pacquiao in 2008. Considering that De La Hoya hasn’t done anything in the sport, it would be a bad idea to throw him in with a world-level fighter, as he’d talked about.
De La Hoya has been living the life of a wealthy retired person, which means he hasn’t been breaking his back working out and keep his weight under control for the last 13 years.
De La Hoya says he’ll be in “Beast mode” for whoever he faces, which may not matter. In a Triller Fight Club video posted today, an old-looking 51-year-old former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell appeared.
If you put one and one together, could ‘Ice Man’ Liddell be the opponent for De La Hoya? If so, he might not need to bother getting into “beast mode” to win. Nevertheless, it’s still a good idea for De La Hoya to get in as best shape as possible, just in case. This isn’t just a one and done with De La Hoya.
He signed a multi-fight deal with Triller, which means it’s important that he impress each time if he wants to continue to bring in the pay-per-view buys. I mean, it would be bad if De La Hoya struggles and loses or is boring in winning.
Oscar might be able to bring in a lot of pay-per-view buys on Triller if he picks a well-known opponent. But with De La Hoya likely to be fighting an MMA guy, he’ll need to fight someone they’ve heard of before.
They’re not going to want to pay to see De La Hoya beat up on an MMA fighter they’ve never heard of or seen before.
De La Hoya hasn’t fought since 2008 and hasn’t exactly lived an active fighter’s lifestyle during his time away, but here’s a little look at him moving around the ring, anyway:
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