LAS VEGAS – (KRT) – There is another reason 1992 Olympic champion Oscar De La Hoya is so appropriately called The Golden Boy.
Ever since 1991, when more than a million sports fans shelled out $53 million to watch from the comfort of their couches George Foreman’s attempt to cement his comeback against Evander Holyfield, the lifeblood of professional pugilism has been pay-per-view proceeds. Six years later, a record 2 million people paid to watch Mike Tyson try to redeem himself against Holyfield.
But since Tyson’s demise, which pulled down boxing’s bellwether division made up of the biggest men, the heart that has done the sport’s heaviest pumping, and sustained it, has been De La Hoya. Not Lennox Lewis. Not Roy Jones.
In 1999, 1.4 million people paid HBO $71.4 million to watch De La Hoya fight Felix Trinidad. A nonheavyweight bout never raked in so much dough.
In 2002, more than 900,000 people sent $47.8 million to HBO to watch De La Hoya fight his hometown nemesis, Fernando Vargas. Last September, at least 950,000 people sent $48.4 million to HBO to watch De La Hoya try to avenge his 2000 loss to Shane Mosley.
That’s the other reason De La Hoya’s moniker fits him as snugly as his gloves. Everything he’s touched in his sport has turned to gold.
His attempt tonight to unseat middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins is expected to rival the 1.4 million buys his Trinidad match attracted.
That’s why whether De La Hoya beats Hopkins will be of secondary importance to what has shaped up as a megamatch. Most important will be whether De La Hoya, just 31, retires. It is something he and his handlers have intimated.
Boxing can’t afford to lose De La Hoya now. The fight game has such a critical shortage of new blood that it will wither without him.
We are accustomed to bemoaning the lack of heavyweight boxers worth watching. John Ruiz? Chris Byrd? Does it matter which Klitschko?
But the problem runs deeper now.
Boxing won’t die without De La Hoya. Hardcore fight fans like me will still plunk down 40 or 50 bucks to watch champions like Hopkins, who will continue fighting no matter his age (39) or what happens tonight. Then there is junior lightweight Erik Morales, featherweight Manny Pacquiao (my favorite), junior welterweight Kostya Tszyu, junior middleweight Winky Wright, a should-be junior welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather, plus up-and-comers such as surprise welterweight king Cory Spinks and someday-to-be junior welterweight champion Miguel Cotto.
In fact, from 140 to 154 pounds, there are a dozen pretty decent fighters, most of whom are coming into their prime. They could make for some good fireworks over the next year or two. But they don’t appear to posses the intangibles of De La Hoya, or other champions who transcended the sport.
De La Hoya’s skills may have eroded in the last year or so, but his striking good looks have sharpened with maturity. He is still a heartthrob to Latinas as well as legions of women from other ethnicities.
Combined with his articulate bilingual tongue, he has been as marketable an athletic talent as can be found.
He’s smart enough, too, not only to avoid the financial pitfalls of the fight game, but also to control his own fate in it, as well as that of others, and profit handsomely. He may not be Leonard facing Hagler in his quest to topple Hopkins, but the comparison is legitimate from the business side.
But De La Hoya has been a legitimate champion along the way, too, not merely a pretty face whose career was fed on a gilded spoon. He earned his nickname in the ring as much as outside of it. He has not proven to be Chicken De La Hoya, as veteran boxing writer Mike Katz long ago dubbed him.
De La Hoya fought an aging but legendary brute, Julio Cesar Chavez, twice and TKO’d him both times, humiliating the former longtime champ even more the second time. He carried Chavez in the second fight as if to teach him a lesson.
He beat Pernell Whitaker.
He beat Ike Quartey.
He lost to Felix Trinidad, but I’d chalk that up to poor strategy.
He embarrassed Vargas.
He lost both fights to Mosley, but I’d argue against both decisions, the first of which was split.
Until his fight in June against Felix Sturm, De La Hoya hadn’t put up a lackluster performance or fought anyone so unheralded, despite Sturm’s undefeated record and WBO belt, since the late `90s. He was due that hall pass. It was his first step up to middleweight.
I don’t know if De La Hoya can pull off the first upset in his career, although Hopkins looked a little too trim at Friday’s weigh-in. But I do know this: If De La Hoya walks out of the MGM Grand Arena afterward into an early sunset for his career, the sun won’t rise again on this sport for quite some time.
