LAS VEGAS ? Oscar De La Hoya wants to fight again. Don?t believe a word you hear otherwise. He has carefully observed the sport since announcing his retirement two years ago and believes there are fights he could win, shows he would headline, titles he may claim.
The most popular boxer of his era misses the roar of the crowd, the adrenaline rush that comes with challenging himself against another man and the sheer emotion that comes with having his hand raised in the center of the ring.
He?s in Las Vegas to promote an HBO Pay-Per-View card at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday and, it?s no stretch to suggest he?d much prefer to be the guy making the long walk down the aisle as the headliner as the crowd roars and the music blares than to be sitting front and center in a suit as the promoter watching Erik Morales and Marcos Maidana do the fighting.
He?s a fighter and fighters never want to quit. They?re forced to quit, but it?s almost never a case of them getting sick of fighting which causes them to walk away. They tire of the pain, of losing, of making the sacrifices a boxer is required to make, and so they quit. Never, though, does the urge to compete go away. And so, if he could, De La Hoya would fight on.
Don?t, however, get your hopes up.
There will be no triumphant comeback. There will be no return to glory. As much as De La Hoya may fantasize about a comeback, as much as he may actually want to do it to fulfill that competitive urge deep inside of him, he?ll be the first to tell you that there?s zero percent chance that it actually happens.
He has arthritis in his elbows and in his shoulders and his back occasionally aches. People remember the handsome, athletic, fast man of a decade ago and imagine him in the ring again. De La Hoya lives with the aches and pains of 30 years in the fight game and isn?t able to call upon his body in that way any more.
?There is not a single day that has gone by since I announced my retirement that at least one person doesn?t ask me if I?m going to come back and fight again,? De La Hoya said. ?I get hounded about that every single day. Every one. And I?m not going to lie. There are times I feel I have more to offer, but I am satisfied with what I?m doing now.?
Even if he weren?t, he wouldn?t come back. Rumors floated throughout the industry that he was contemplating a June 18 return against Golden Boy?s latest sensation, Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez.
De La Hoya chuckles at the thought. Just going through a workout like the average middle-aged man does at the local health club erases any doubt that he may come back. He?s 38 and he feels every day of those 38 years. A comeback is not on the agenda, not now, not six months from now, not ever.
?My body won?t let me do it,? he says. ?No chance. None.?
Two years after the emotional retirement ceremony outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles, he?s working to develop his niche as a promoter. He still appears at news conferences and promotional events, and his partner, Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer, insists he?s intimately involved in planning.
Oscar De La Hoya misses the ring, but has adapted well to the role of promoter. (AP)
De La Hoya, Schaefer said, is as far from a figurehead as could be.
?He has a chart he keeps that has a list of Golden Boy?s future stars, Golden Boy?s elite fighters and which he keeps notes on and everything,? Schaefer said. ?He goes and sits with [matchmakers] Eric Gomez and Roberto Diaz and goes over his thoughts and ideas and is learning from the ground up.?
His biggest impact upon the company may be as a mentor to fighters such as Alvarez, who is starting to walk the same path De La Hoya did two decades ago after winning a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Alvarez is only 20, already a world champion and an idol to millions in Mexico. Before his title-winning effort over Matthew Hatton in Anaheim, Calif., last month, Alvarez credited De La Hoya with providing wise counsel.
?He?s done what I?m doing now,? Alvarez said. ?There?s nothing I can?t talk about with him, because he?s been there and knows what it?s like. That makes it easier for me because I can rely on him to help me.?
De La Hoya took three young boxers, Adrian Broner, Seth Mitchell and Danny Jacobs, with him on a USO tour of the Middle East last month. The trip afforded him time to speak to each of them privately and advise them about their careers.
Broner fought Daniel Ponce de Leon on the Alvarez-Hatton undercard and, though he won, did little to impress. Fans and media were turned off by his effort, in which it seemed like he tried harder to impersonate Floyd Mayweather Jr. than he did to win the fight.
On the USO tour, De La Hoya suggested he tone down the flashiness.
?The thing that?s good for us is, Oscar can have an impact with these guys because of his background and because they know he?s done it at the highest level,? Schaefer said. ?He takes these guys under their wing, and they listen, and that helps them become better.?
De La Hoya says he?s devoting much of his post-fighting career to reviving boxing. He raves about the work that Dana White has done building the Ultimate Fighting Championship and says he wants to do similar for boxing.
Boxing was once one of the three major sports in the U.S., along with baseball and horse racing. It may never return to that point, but De La Hoya is convinced he can play a role in lifting it from where it stands now.
He?s had conversations with White about White?s blueprint for the UFC and is going to take what he can from it and apply it to boxing.
?We have to bring corporate America into it and run boxing like a business, a real business,? he said. ?Our product is the fights and we have to listen to our customers, the fans, and give them what they want. Me coming back to fight isn?t going to solve the problems. We have to take a close look at what went wrong, what works, and put it together to put boxing back where it belongs.?
He?s vague, and short on specifics, but he knows this, not a return to fighting, is where he can have the biggest impact.
It?s this challenge, the most difficult fight of his career, which gets him out of bed in the morning raring to go.
?Fighters come and create memories that last a lifetime, but the challenge on our end of the business is to replace those fighters when they go and to develop and market the new generation of stars,? De La Hoya said. ?The career of a boxer is not a long one. As a promoter, I can have the longevity to make the kind of changes in this sport that really need to be made. I love boxing and I want to spend the rest of my life building it up, higher and higher and higher. That?s what I will do every day for as long as I can.?
