Oscar De La Hoya is “ticked off” with Manny Pacquiao, and wants to make him pay on Saturday night.
The ‘Golden Boy’ is still fuming about his failed bid to sign Pacquaio for his promotional company.
That bid resulted in a lawsuit before a settlement finally brought closure to the feud with Bob Arum’s Top Rank.
But as De La Hoya prepares to face Pacman in the ring in Las Vegas, his CEO Richard Schaefer says Oscar’s strong words are for real, not just to promote the fight.
“Oscar was very disappointed in Manny. And Manny somehow has that ability to attract chaos. And, I try to tell Oscar it’s really Manny attracting this kind of chaos. But Oscar is ticked off, he is very disappointed. And more than once, he said ‘I’m going to make him pay’.”
Since Golden Boy and Top Rank settled their differences, they’ve got together to put on some of the biggest fights in the last year or so.
Events like Pacquiao/Barrera II, Pacquaio/Marquez II and Cotto/Mosley have continued the recent boom the fight game has enjoyed.
And now this promotion on Saturday – they’re calling it ‘The Dream Match’ – sees 2008 end fittingly with the biggest fight of the year.
Schaefer added: “I think things happen for a reason. And when that whole episode happened when Manny signed with two people there were some hard feelings between the two promoters. There were some hard feelings on Oscar’s part, vice-versa Manny Pacquiao as well.
“But ultimately once the dust settled and as some writers refer to “the cold war” was over and the result is you actually come out of these kind of situations bigger, better, and stronger.
“The fact is that Top Rank and Golden Boy in the last 12 months or so have put together some of the biggest fights of our sport. I think we realise, we need to do what is the right thing for the sport and for the sport’s fans, which is to keep on bringing them the biggest and best fights we can do.”
Arum for his part is just happy that sense prevailed and the two parties managed to thrash out a settlement.
“I agree with what Richard said. I also would want to give credit to the mediator, who talked sense into both of us, Judge Daniel Weinstein, who handled the mediation in such a way that it brought both sides together so we could resolve this issue and go on.”
