By Manuel Perez: As the saying goes, Pride goes before a fall. This was never more the case when World Boxing Council lightweight champion Manny Pacquiao refused the 70-30 purse split offer so generously offered up by Oscar De La Hoya for their December 6th bout. Pacquiao not only turned it down, but walked away from the bargaining process completely, leaving De La Hoya alone with egg on his face. It’s not something that a proud fighter like De La Hoya is accustomed to, and I doubt that it will be forgotten now, even if Pacquiao were to have a change of mind and suddenly want the fight.
Oscar De La Hoya
De La Hoya Now Looking At Possible Opponents Mosley, Hatton, Williams, Mora, and Jones
By Jason Kim: The Oscar De La Hoya sweepstakes continue as the CEO of Golden Boy, Richard Schaefer, said yesterday that De La Hoya is now considering a fight with the following opponents, Ricky Hatton, Sergio Mora, Paul Williams, Roy Jones Jr. and Shane Mosley. De La Hoya, 35, was previously working on a fight with Manny Pacquiao, but that fight fell through when Pacquiao failed to accept Golden Boy’s offer of a 30% share of the PPV revenues for the fight. Pacquiao, however, was looking at getting at least 40%.
Rather than give in to Oscar’s wishes and accepting an offer that he felt was unfair, Pacquiao walked away, leaving Oscar without an opponent once again. Not to be one to just sit and mope about the turn of events, De La Hoya has immediately started looking at other options. A name conspicuously missing from the list of fighters named was Antonio Margarito, a tough all offense fighter who recently dethroned Miguel Cotto last month.
De La Hoya, however, doesn’t want to fight him because, A. He’s a Mexican and Oscar doesn’t want to fight a Mexican fighter in his final fight of his career, although Mora is Mexican. B. Margarito has unfinished business with Paul Williams, who previously defeated him by a close 12-round decision in 2007.
De La Hoya Turns To Mora After Pacquiao Walks Away
By Jim Dower: Going from a massive fight that would have likely brought in huge PPV dollar numbers, Oscar De La Hoya has suddenly had a lowering of expectations, turning his sights to WBC light middleweight champion Sergio Mora as his final opponent of his career on December 6th. The fight, however, isn’t a solid lock because Mora still would need to defeat former light middleweight champion Vernon Forrest in their rematch on September 13th. That’s going to be a tall order for Mora, because Forrest looked to be having an off night, and even then he landed the better shots and came close to defeating Mora.
With motivation, Forrest will likely beat Mora, which will send De La Hoya scurrying about yet again looking for another opponent. I doubt for a second that De La Hoya would show any interested in fighting the tough Forrest, because he punches hard and might damage the face of De La Hoya, sending him potentially to his retirement in defeat. De La Hoya is reportedly having no trouble with discussing of the financial terms of the fight with Mora’s promoter, and it seems that they’re not adverse to the terms like Manny Pacquiao recently was this week.
Pacquiao-De La Hoya Negotiations Off: Will Oscar Now Face Margarito?
By Manuel Perez: In what turned out to be a bitter pill for Golden Boy Promotions today, lightweight Manny Pacquiao walked away from an offer of 70-30 purse split with the “Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya, turning him down when he refused to budge in any way and come in at the 60-40 purse split that Pacquiao was seeking. Rather than take an offer that was less than what he found personally acceptable, Pacquiao, 29, decided to turn the fight down and look in another direction, possibly against Humberto Soto, a top super featherweight. De La Hoya, however, now has the perfect opportunity to show his fans how courageous he is and choose to fight Antonio Margarito, the World Boxing Association welterweight champion, who has been very interested in fighting De La Hoya as of late.
With Pacquiao out of the picture, the obvious choice for De La Hoya to make would be a fight against the dangerous Margarito. Few boxing fans, of course, would give De La Hoya much of a chance at beating Margarito, mainly because both fighters are going in difference career directions at this point. Margarito is at the top of the game, perhaps the number #1 or #2 welterweight in the division, depending on who you talk to, whereas De La Hoya would lucky if he could make to number #5.
With Pacquiao Out of The Picture, Who Should De La Hoya Fight?
By Aaron Klein: With today’s bombshell announcement that Manny Pacquiao has pulled out of the negotiations for a fight with Oscar De La Hoya, turning down a 70-30 purse split, just who now should De La Hoya fight on December 6th? To be sure, Pacquiao still would probably be the best option, but De La Hoya doesn’t want to budge from his original offer to meet the 60-40 split that Pacquiao is interested in. In turning down the fight, Pacquiao seems to acting on principal, since he’s walking away from what would likely be none to ten million dollars that he would earn for the fight if he were to take the 70-30 split. Not bad money for any fighter to take, and a number that is three to four times what Pacquiao normally gets for his fights.
Knowing how much money he’s walking away from, you got to respect Pacquiao for sticking to his guns and not allowing himself to accept anything lower than what he asked for. This leaves De La Hoya – again – without an opponent for his last fight of his boxing career. Previously, Floyd Mayweather Jr., who had been thought to be De La Hoya’s last fight of his career, suddenly retired, leaving De la Hoya scrambling for an opponent.
De La Hoya-Pacquiao Negotiations Off?
By William Mackay: According to reports from fightnews, Manny Pacquiao has turned down an offer of a 70-30 split from Golden Boy Promotions for a potential December 6th fight with Oscar De La Hoya. Pacquiao wanted a 60-40 split, but De La Hoya’s Golden Boy management team where firm with the original 70-30 split. Instead of taking the offer, Pacquiao will either stay at lightweight or possibly move back down to the super featherweight division where there are opponents like Edwin Valero and Juan Manuel Marquez waiting for Pacquiao.
Both De La Hoy and Pacquiao had previously been stuck on the purse split issue and glove sizes (Pacquiao wanted the smaller 8-oz gloves while De La Hoya wanted the large 10-oz gloves. However, the purse split was the real issue, as Pacquiao, by far the better fighter at this stage in his boxing career, wanted a 60-40 split given his talent and his huge popularity among boxing fans.
Is De La Hoya The Most Hated Fighter In Boxing?
By Eric Thomas: As the days draw nearer for what will likely be Oscar De La Hoya’s final fight of his boxing career on December 6th against Manny Pacquiao, De La Hoya has seemed to become a lightning rod for criticism among boxing fans on the internet. And to think, all it took was for him to kick around the idea of wanting to fight Pacquiao, a fighter up until recently fought as a super featherweight. The fans, some of which were at one time fans of De La Hoya, appear to be angered because De La Hoya has opted to skip over facing Mexican Antonio Margarito, who recently stopped Miguel Cotto in a WBA welterweight title bout.
Before the fight, De La Hoya has made mention of wanting to fight the winner of the fight, although it looks as if he had a change of mind after watching Cotto get brutally stopped by Margarito in the 11th round of the fight. De La Hoya probably decided it wasn’t the best of ideas to take on a fighter with as much offensive power as Margarito, for it would be a bout that would almost guarantee that he finish his boxing career on a losing note – maybe even one where his face was rearranged in the process. Considering that he’s had it pretty easy the last four years of his career, facing a smallish Floyd Mayweather, a shot Ricardo Mayorga, another smallish opponent in Steve Forbes and then Bernard Hopkins, who took De La Hoya out with a phantom body shot, it really isn’t all that surprising that De La Hoya would elect to bypass Margarito and instead face the non-threatening Pacquiao.
Calzaghe-Jones, Pavlik-Hopkins, De La Hoya-Pacquiao: Is Boxing In a Race To The Bottom?
By Tony Krebs: Just looking at the current state of boxing now with fighters like Kelly Pavlik facing 43 year-old former champion Bernard Hopkins rather than other more deserving middleweights, undefeated Joe Calzaghe avoiding his top super middleweight opponents to fight a 39 year-old Roy Jones Jr, and then for the kicker of them all, Oscar De La Hoya taking on Manny Pacquiao, a fighter that he outweighs by 25 lbs. There is certainly a great deal of ridicule that has occurred due to these bouts, as it seems to have made a mockery of the different weight classes, removing established weight boundaries, turning things into a state of chaos in which only what brings about the most money seems to count.
Forget about taking on your number one mandatory, these fighters seem to be out for one thing – the most money they can get for a fight. I suppose it wouldn’t matter so much if it didn’t affect other fighters in their weight classes, ones that are being overlooked just so these fighters can get a chance for a big payday. However, I don’t see it as being fair to the other fighters in the division, nor to boxing either. If someone like Kelly Pavlik, the WBC/WBO middleweight champion, is taking on fighters like Hopkins as 170, what happens to other fighters that may have had a chance to show their talent if given the chance against Pavlik?
Forget Pacquiao, De La Hoya Needs To Avenge His Losses Or Else Face Margarito
By Chet Mills: With still no official word as to who Oscar De La Hoya will be facing for his final fight on December 6th, it seems as if the leading candidate in the running is small lightweight Manny Pacquiao, the 5’6″ Filipino star. Antonio Margarito, fresh off his 10th round TKO of Miguel Cotto, is apparently in the running as well, although most boxing fans doubt that he’ll land the fight with Oscar.
The fight is a bad match-up for Pacquiao, who will be giving up a lot of size to the 5’11” De La Hoya. In the end, the fight is more about making money for each of them than it is about a fight that is truly a competitive one. Even with Pacquiao’s incredible speed and power at the lower weights, he’ll be in the end simply too small to give De La Hoya a run for the money in the fight. For a lot of fans of De La Hoya, this potential fight has been a lightning rod for criticism, as many of them point out the size differences between the two fighters which favors the bigger De La Hoya by a considerable margin. Indeed, De La Hoya has been fighting mostly at 154, whereas up until his last fight against David Diaz, Pacquiao has been fighting as a super featherweight and going quite well at that weight, with the exception of his two fights with Juan Manuel Marquez.
De La Hoya Needs To Man-Up and Fight Margarito
By Manuel Perez: If you’re like me, you were expecting much more from Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs) for his so-called last fight of his boxing career likely against super featherweight Manny Pacquiao (37-5, 27 KOs) on December 6th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Besides the whole silly image of a fighter of De La Hoya’s size going out of the game against Pacquiao, whose miniature 5’6″ frame is going to make him look like a Lilliputian next to the 5’11” De La Hoya, the fight isn’t what the public wants from Oscar for his final fight. Heck, he’s already fought two consecutive smaller fighters in Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Steve Forbes, fighters obviously chosen, among other reasons, for their smaller size and inability to hurt the bigger De La Hoya.
After these match-ups, do we really need to see Oscar go up against yet another undersized fighter? The answer is no. It’s time that De La Hoya grows a pair and summons some courage to take on WBA welterweight champion Antonio Margarito, who has been making it no secret that he wants to fight De La Hoya. A fight against Pacquiao, although a fight that would pad De La Hoya’s wallet, wouldn’t make him look particularly brave to the boxing public, and if this is truly his last fight, it would likely leave an impression of him that he was ducking the best welterweight fighter in boxing, Margarito, in order to face a fighter too small to give him a fight.