By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya has decided to make his comeback fight against Vitor Belfort a real eight round match and not an exhibition like he’d previously planned for September 11th on Triller pay-per-view at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. The fight will be shown on Fite. tv.
Mike Coppinger says the fight has been approved by the California Commission for it to be a real one.
‘The Golden Boy’ De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KOs) decided that he didn’t like the idea of fighting an eight round exhibition against 44-year-old former UFC champion Belfort.
So rather than use that format, the former five-division world champion De La Hoya has made it a real bout that will count against his record.
The positive side of that move by De La Hoya is that he can push down his loss to Manny Pacquiao in his last fight in 2008 and have a possible victory over Belfort on top of it.
What fans don’t like about De La Hoya’s September 11th fight is that it’s going to be eight two-minute rounds instead of the normal three rounds for a professional bout.
Women’s boxing has two-minute rounds, so it’s a little odd that De La Hoya has decided to follow that format rather than stick with three minutes per round.
It would be interesting to know why De La Hoya didn’t opt for three-minute rounds, given how much abuse he’s going to take from boxing fans.
Maybe De La Hoya tried sparring for three minutes and had problems with his gas tank? Who knows?
It just seems kind of wack, especially when you realize the fight is being sold on Triller PPV. If you’re going to sell an abbreviated fight scheduled eight rounds instead of twelve, at least you can do is give the fans their money’s worth.
After all, fans are paying their hard-earned money during the pandemic, and it seems off-putting for the fight to be a 16-minute affair rather than 24 minutes.
For De La Hoya’s sake, he’s doing to need a good undercard to get fans to want to pay to see his fight with Belfort because they’re not going to be excited at the idea of watching an eight-round fight for the main event.
8 round fights are for the off TV matches that fans generally don’t see unless they’re attending the event at ringside.
Another thing that could cripple the PPV buys for the De La Hoya vs. Belfort card is the date of the event. Scheduling it for September 11th places it one week ahead of Canelo Alvarez’s September 18th fight against Caleb Plant, which could present a hardship for a lot of people.
Unlike De La Hoya, the average fan isn’t a millionaire. As such, when you’re asking the fans to pay $50 for the De La Hoya-Belfort event and then have then there’s a much better fight card a week later between Canelo and Plant on September 18th, which event do you think the fans will purchase?
Placing the De La Hoya vs. Belfort fight a week ahead of Canelo’s date could hurt both of their buy numbers for PPV.
What De La Hoya is likely counting on is the fans celebrating the Mexican Independence Day holiday being willing to pay to see his fight because it falls during the celebration.
Maybe some will still buy it, but not as many as there would have been if De La Hoya didn’t schedule it close to Canelo’s fight.
With the fight being eight rounds, De La Hoya needs to try and knock Belfort out because the fans are going to be angry if it goes eight rounds and the fight is over so quickly due to the 2-minute rounds.
Since De La Hoya plans on continuing to fight in the future, he needs to give the fans a good product. He can’t be giving them slop as we’ve seen with Floyd Mayweather’s matches against Logan Paul, Conor McGregor, and Tenshin Nasukawa.
Other than that, the fight will be contested at 180 lbs, which means the 48-year-old De La Hoya will need to lose some weight because he’s currently weighing 187 lbs, and looking chunky at the weight.
“I’m very excited to announce my comeback against Vitor Belfort at STAPLES Center on Saturday, September 11 in a mega-event celebrating Mexican Independence Day,” said De La Hoya.
“Triller Fight Club and My team have been working together to bring the most epic event boxing has seen in a long time. I decided if I was coming back it was for real, none of this exhibition stuff.
“This isn’t that WWE theatrics we’ve been seeing in boxing lately, this is the real deal, a real fight with real knockouts for a real win,” said De La Hoya.
If De La Hoya wants this to be a real fight, he needs to extend the rounds to three minutes and make it a 10 rounder or better yet, a 12-rounder. Give the fans their money’s worth, Oscar! Don’t be a cheapskate.