By Max Schramm: Oscar De La Hoya is saying he wants a rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr., and he has $100 million that he’s offering him to take the fight.
The 48-year-old De La Hoya was supposed to have been coming out of his 13-year retirement recently to take on former UFC champion Vitor Belfort on a Triller PPV card.
De La Hoya lost a close 12 round split decision to Mayweather fourteen years ago in May 2007 in a fight that pulled in 2.4 million pay-per-view buys, which was a record at the time.
In the early stages, Oscar was winning the fight using his jab but lost control of the contest when he started loading up on his shots, trying to knock Mayweather out.
Mayweather is not expected to accept De La Hoya’s offer
The 42-year-old Mayweather (50-0, 27 KOs) hasn’t shown the ambition to take on real boxers since his win over faded fighter Andre Berto in 2015.
Mayweather has been making huge money in his matches against MMA fighters Conor McGregor, Tenshin Nasukawa, and YouTuber Logan Paul. Those guys had no clue about boxing, and Mayweather saw the events banks heists.
De La Hoya would be a more difficult fight for Mayweather, as Floyd has lost his hand speed and looks older than his 42 years.
Physically, Mayweather now looks closer to Evander Holyfield’s age than for a fighter in his early 40s. For that reason, the odds of Mayweather accepting De La Hoya’s offer of $100 million are slim and none.
With casual boxing fans still willing to dump massive money on watching Mayweather fight non-boxers like Logan Paul, he’s not about to veer away from this proven formula to face a washed-up De La Hoya.
I mean, Oscar may be old, but he knows how to fight, and he has more size, power, and now better hand speed than the faded Mayweather.
It wouldn’t be a walk in the park for Mayweather to fight De La Hoya, and that’s why he probably won’t take the fight. Mayweather can continue to make easy money by cherry-picking MMA and YouTubers and peddling the battles by selling these circus events.
Two weeks before the fight, De La Hoya suddenly pulled out of the card, saying he had COVID-19. Although many boxing fans were highly skeptical of De La Hoya’s illness, he posted a video clip of himself ailing in what appeared to be a hospital bed.
In hindsight, it was an intelligent move by De La Hoya to pull out of the fight with the 44-year-old Brazilian Vitor Belfort because the chances are high that he would have been blown out as quickly as the 58-year-old Evander Holyfield was.
Kavanaugh wants to reschedule De La Hoya vs. Belfort
As of Monday, Triller Fight Club CEO Ryan Kavanaugh said he’s interested in rescheduling the fight between De La Hoya and Vitor Belfort. Unfortunately, the chances of De La Hoya agreeing to reschedule the fight with Belfort are virtually nonexistent.
De La Hoya has said nothing since pulling out of his fight with Belfort on September 3rd about wanting to reschedule that fight.
The fact that Oscar isn’t saying anything about wanting to reschedule with Belfort is an indication that he’s not interested in fighting him, and for a good reason.
Belfort has too much youth, size, speed, and power for De La Hoya. If Oscar hadn’t pulled out of the Belfort fight, he would have indeed met the same fate as Holyfield.