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Philippines, 18 Apr 2024 |
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One-on-one with The Golden Boy Oscar De La Hoya By Socrates Celestial PhilBoxing.com Fri, 22 Oct 2010  Renowned pound for pound fighter turned promoter Oscar De La Hoya visited Toronto recently to promote the highly anticipated and already historic Jean Pascal vs Bernard Hopkins fight taking place on December 18th of this year in Quebec City, Canada. The president of Golden Boy Productions, De La Hoya, had his focus on the WBC Light Heavyweight and Ring Magazine 175lb Championship match, which will put Hopkins as the oldest fighter in a title match in Boxing history. De La Hoya spoke softly and courteously about the champion Pascal and passionately of his own fighter Hopkins. Immediately after the press conference De La Hoya graciously agreed to speak to Philboxing?s Toronto Boxing analyst and correspondent Socrates Celestial. Socrates Celestial: Thank you Oscar De La Hoya for agreeing to speak to Philboxing about some of the current events in the Boxing industry today. ODLH: Not a problem, always a pleasure. SC: During the press conference we heard you and Yvon Michel speak of the possibility of having high showcase fights in the Toronto area. Was this fight with Pascal and Hopkins one of those fights? ODLH: Yes, we tried, but as it turned out we were unable to get the venue where we would like to host it. We looked at large arenas such as the Air Canada Center and it wasn?t possible at this time. Michel then proposed that we do this in Quebec City and I thought it was a great idea. SC: Dana White has been aggressively pushing for the UFC to gain sanctioning in the Toronto area and now it looks as though he may be able to make that a possibility. With the fast growing interest in MMA there is a large boxing culture of fans starving for title fights and main showcase fights to take place in our city. Does Golden Boy Productions plan on attempting hosting these events here? ODLH: Oh definitely! That was our intention for this fight, but now we?re looking to towards the future of what we can do. We have just come back from Mexico and we?re wrapping up a connection for Golden Boy Productions down there. We are promoting David Haye?s next fight with our UK branch and we?re looking into a market in Canada, Toronto being one of our top choices. SC: So which one your fighters would you want to promote from your stable of fighters? Which one would you showcase for a Toronto premier? ODLH: Well we have many (fighters) that we would love to bring up here. I don?t think Vegas should be the only place where big events happen in the Boxing World. It should be all over to expose the sport to a wide audience. I would love to bring up Amir Khan or Saul Alvarez, but our focus right now is on Omar (Figueroa). SC: So provided Hopkins wins this match against Pascal, the rematch that Hopkins said he?d honor Pascal with, could that take place in Toronto? ODLH: Toronto would be our first choice. Everyone here is for a match in Toronto so its just a matter of time and effort before we will see that. Canadian?s love boxing and we think that?s great. There are a lot of great boxers to come out of Canada and great fights as well. SC: The problem with that is that they?re in so far apart in years. Chivalo versus Ali was in 1966. Is there any consistency that we would be able to see here? ODLH: I think that there?s an audience here and if done right, we could have a venue once a month. I?d like to see that. It would be good to catch the interest of some of the American networks like ?Showcase? and other paid televised sports markets. Events like this would influence other promotional groups to this area, but our interests are what Golden Boy Productions is doing. We?re working in co-operation with other promotional groups like Yvon Michel?s (Groupe Yvon Michel). We want to make exciting fights and make the fights that people want to see. SC: Thank you for your time Oscar and I hope we can see these efforts come to fruition soon. 
Oscar de la Hoya (R) with the author during the interview. Photos by Rob Cruz. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Socrates Celestial.  |
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