Funny. Not only has Oscar de la Hoya flipped and flopped. He is still in denial mode almost one year after he was disgraced into retirement by Filipino boxing demi-god Manny Pacquiao.
Anybody who says he was not hurt by Manny’s punches even if most of them got knocked down or stopped for good is either a hypocrite or a masochist.
Nobody has disfigured Oscar’s face as Manny did and no one has totally dominated him from start to finish.
In his losses to Felix Trinidad, Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather Jr, de la Hoya was at least competitive. In the only other stoppage he suffered against Hopkins, his face was never ‘tattoed’ so badly like what it was when Pacquiao ran rings around him with accurate punches.
Now he comes proclaiming that Pacquiao’s punches are not hard.
“I could’ve stood there and put my face in front of him and he couldn’t have hurt me,” he said in his recent blog.
On hindsight, yes. Maybe. But why did you not come out from your corner in that fateful break after the eight round, Oscar?
Hell, you almost came down in one of those pitiful rounds had you not held on to the ropes.
The same defiance was uttered by Oscar Larios who, despite being sent to the canvass twice and was rushed to the hospital after the bout, said in a post fight conference that Manny did not hurt him.
Jorge Solis, who crumpled to the mat in the eight round, likewise said his wife hits harder than Pacquiao.
Erik Morales, in winning his first fight in his trilogy with Pacquiao also dismissed Manny’s power only to suffer five knockdowns in their succeeding rematches.
Oscar’s blatant denial is perhaps only matched by the biggest cry baby of them all, Juan Manuel Marquez who kissed the canvass four times against Manny.
Will Miguel Angel Cotto suffer the same fate as them?
Cotto has the making of a man who likes to inflict pain to his self.
He has dismissed Manny’s power saying it won’t hurt a natural welterweight like him.
Many have fallen into that false sense of complacency and delusion.
Wrong. Manny either breaks you down with accurate punching like what he did to Morales and Oscar or topple you down with a single punch like what he delivered to Ricky Hatton en route to a sensational and devastating second round stoppage.
Cotto may not go down easily. But Manny will take away that resolve in him and wear him down into frustration.
In boxing, it is not how hard you hit. It is how you time the delivery of your punches and where you deliver it.
Cotto is a big puncher, agree. But can he land it where it will hurt Manny most?
That question will be answered next weekend.
