It was July 21 at the Montebello Police Athletic League gym, located just blocks from the city limits of East Los Angeles, where Oscar De La Hoya grew up. It was five days before Antonio Margarito would beat Miguel Cotto to a pulp on the way to an 11th-round technical knockout and another welterweight world title.
On this day, Margarito worked out for the media. We cornered him just after he walked into the PAL and asked him about De La Hoya’s alleged latest disclaimer — that he did not want a Mexican to be his final opponent. De La Hoya’s last fight is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 6.
Margarito is from Tijuana, Mexico. De La Hoya is Mexican-American. Margarito smiled and said something in Spanish that can’t be printed here, then cleaned up his answer.
“What’s the fear?” Margarito said. “I don’t understand that. At the time we made this fight (his with Puerto Rico’s Cotto), he said he would fight the winner. It would be good for the Mexican people. I hope he reconsiders.”
Bob Arum promotes Margarito as well as another possible future De La Hoya opponent, Manny Pacquiao. Arum said De La Hoya told him recently he does not want his farewell fight to be against a Mexican, which would exclude Margarito from the De La Hoya sweepstakes.
“He was adamant,” Arum told this reporter last week.
Arum made further mention of this at Saturday’s post-fight news conference in Las Vegas. Arum also mentioned perhaps De La Hoya would change his mind now that a fight with Margarito would be in such high demand with big money to be made.
Interestingly, it wasn’t long ago De La Hoya said he did not want to fight Puerto Ricans anymore because his wife, Millie, is Puerto Rican. He apparently changed his tune in that regard, because Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer recently said that De La Hoya would love to fight Cotto if he beat Margarito.
We talked to several veteran boxing writers in the aftermath of Margarito’s sizzling upset victory Saturday over one of boxing’s top pound-for-pound fighters. The consensus feeling was De La Hoya will certainly not want anything to do with Margarito after the way he humbled Cotto.
Many reporters laughed at the idea that De La Hoya would say he did not want to fight a Mexican in his farewell bout. It made one wonder if perhaps the statement was a preemptive strike, a ready-made excuse for not taking on a fighter who would be good enough to beat Cotto.
De La Hoya would have given Cotto the same matchup problems Margarito did. De La Hoya would have had an easier time with Cotto because Cotto — at 5-feet-7 — is not a big welterweight. De La Hoya is 5-10? and his length — as did Margarito’s — would have bothered Cotto.
De La Hoya holds no such advantages over Margarito, a patient animal standing 5-11. At this point, he could be De La Hoya’s worst nightmare. Margarito could hurt De La Hoya more than he has ever been hurt during his career.
Many think De La Hoya knows that. And that the last thing he wants is to retire with a butt-kicking of painful proportions. But Eric Gomez, De La Hoya’s matchmaker at Golden Boy and longtime friend, does not want to hear that. During a spirited interview with Gomez on Tuesday, he scoffed at the notion that his boyhood pal is scared of Margarito or anybody else.
