Saturday, the biggest fight in recent memory goes down as Pound for Pound King, Floyd Mayweather, JR., 37-0, 24 KO?s, faces his biggest challenge in the people?s champion and WBC Light Middleweight Champion, Oscar De La Hoya, 38-4, 30 KO?s, in a 12 round battle that the world is literally talking about. The odds originally favored Floyd by a 4-1 margin, but I suspect that we will see a 2-1 or perhaps even odds by the time this fight goes down and there is some reason behind the rhyme.
Oscar De La Hoya is big, talented, accustomed to the big stage events, and looked great in his last bout against Ricardo Mayorga, where Floyd took a step back with a boring and uneventful decision over Carlos Baldomir. If the statement that you are only as good as your last fight holds true, perhaps the betting public are betting as much with their minds as they are with their hearts. Oscar De La Hoya is an underdog but he is a live underdog with a lot of motivation to win this fight.
Boxing has needed a shot in the arm for quite some time and we have it and now it has the responsibility to live up to the hype, which will be extremely tough. A common thread with both De La Hoya and Floyd is a safety first style that creeps in at times, as it did in the Baldomir fight and in De La Hoya?s effort against Felix Trinidad. There is the possibility, although remote, that this fight will be a stinker with Floyd walking away with a huge decision win over an unwilling De La Hoya, but I make it a long shot. ?The Golden Boy? did not take this fight to make a bundle of money, lose, and go home. He has money?a ton of it, and is not hurting for his next meal. The sole motivation in this fight for Oscar has to be a matter of legacy. To understand this, we must go back to September 18th, 2004.
The Undisputed Middleweight Champion, Bernard Hopkins landed his money fight against De La Hoya. It was a bout that many thought would end with a win for ?The Executioner,? but not too many felt that it would end in a knockout, and when Oscar crumbled to the canvas from an unremarkable body shot, it left an impression. To many, Emanuel Steward included, De La Hoya was beaten by anxiety and quit, and even Teddy Atlas implied that he too believed that ?The Golden Boy? lost his nerve in the bout. Being a Mexican Warrior has been very important to Oscar, and he may still feel that he has not been accepted as one despite his gutsy performances against Fernando Vargas and Ike Quartey. A win over Floyd would erase the body shot TKO and place him right back into the rankings of all time greats.
For any fighter to come out of retirement and defeat the pound for pound best is a huge accomplishment. If he can soundly defeat Floyd Mayweather, JR., he will be reborn and the world will be talking about De La Hoya returning to form and saving boxing from the villain that Floyd has turned himself into. Both men understand marketing and in boxing when you have a good guy and a bad guy facing off, it sells, but this fight has a lot more than that going for it. Both men desperately want to win this fight and they both want a knockout, and it will probably happen.
This bout will probably break all pay per view records. If De La Hoya-Mayorga can do close to a million buys, I suspect that this will double or triple that amount. The casual boxing fans are ready to return and this is what has gotten them to put that 55 dollars down to their local cable companies to watch history in the making.
Now, that 55 smackers will also bring a couple more fights for your entertainment. Filipino Superstar, Rey ?Boom Boom? Bautista, 22-0, 17 KO?s, will face Sergio Manuel Medina, 28-0, 16 KO?s, in a shootout that should prove to be exciting. Bautista has been on a roll lately, and has a strong following. He may be the next in line to earn that national hero status in the Philippines, much like the famous Manny Pacquiao. It will be a WBO Super Bantamweight Eliminator.
Super featherweight, Rocky Juarez, 26-3, 19 KO?s, will try to rebound after being a deer in the headlights in his rematch with Marco Antonio Barrera as he faces Jose Andres Hernandez, 22-3, 14 KO?s, who is coming off his biggest win, a KO over young sensation, Jason Litzau. From what I?ve seen in the Litzau fight, Juarez may be taking on a durable but safe opponent, but this is boxing and the mental blocks that Juarez seems to suffer from may hinder him enough to make an upset possible.
Also on the card is another hopeful Filipino fighter, AJ Banal, 12-0, 10 KO?s, as he faces Juan Alberto Rosas, 25-2, 22 KO?s, in a 10 round flyweight bout. Banal has Freddie Roach as a trainer and that may prove vital in his young and promising career, although he is in with a tough customer come Saturday.
