LAS VEGAS — From the moment Oscar De La Hoya won an Olympic gold medal in Barcelona 15 years ago, questions about his desire to become one of boxing’s truly greats have dogged him.
Was he a fighter or a musician? Did he care more about being a man-about-town or training for the next fight?
How could he possibly keep his focus as a fighter when he went corporate and became a promoter by starting his own company, Golden Boy Promotions?
De La Hoya answered those questions and more Friday afternoon when he took the scale in his skivvies to reveal his ripped abs and thicker-than-usual chest to the delight of a weigh-in record crowd of 8,500.
At the 154-pound limit for tonight’s WBC junior-middleweight title fight, De La Hoya not only served notice he is indeed taking this megafight seriously, the reigning champ also made the diminutive Floyd Mayweather Jr. look even smaller in stature.
The 5-foot-8 Mayweather tipped the scales at 150 pounds, while the 5-10 1/2 De La Hoya figures to enter the ring closer to 170.
“I feel good, very confident,” De La Hoya said in Spanish following the raucous weigh-in. “I am ready. No problems and my physical shape is a reflection of that.”
While Mayweather was accompanied by rapper 50 Cent, De La Hoya was joined backstage by boxing legends Roberto Duran and Felix “Tito” Trinidad.
“Right-hand, cross-over the top to the head, and left hook to the liver,” Duran advised.
“You are too big,” Trinidad added. “You have too much experience. You can beat him.”
Trinidad handed De La Hoya one of his four defeats in a controversial decision in 1999. “Sugar” Shane Mosley won two hotly contested decisions against De La Hoya in 2000 and 2003 and sparred with De La Hoya during training camp in Puerto Rico. He is now a vice president with Golden Boy, as is Bernard Hopkins, who stopped De La Hoya with a ninth-round body blow in 2004.
That one-time rivals now work with and for De La Hoya speaks to his massive transcendent draw.
Who wouldn’t want to make money with the most popular fighter in the universe with such crossover appeal he is about to become the biggest drawing card in the sport’s history? According to USA Today, De La Hoya’s 17 pay-per-view fights have generated $492 million in revenue and 10.4 million buys.
Only former heavyweight champs Mike Tyson ($545 million in revenue on 12.4 million buys on 12 pay-per-view cards) and Evander Holyfield ($534 million, 12.6 million, 14) have generated more dollars than the “Golden Boy.”
Although Mayweather is guaranteed a career-high $10 million, it’s still $15 million shy of what De La Hoya will make tonight. De La Hoya, who has earned more than $150 million in his career, is in another stratosphere.
Because while Mayweather and his crew entered the weigh-in wearing gear with Michael Jordan’s image, De La Hoya’s party was all emblazoned with the Golden Boy silhouette.
Which shows he is as much a brand as he is a boxer.
There’s a reason De La Hoya can pick and choose the dates on which he fights. And there’s a method to the Chicano son of Mexican immigrants choosing to box as close as possible to Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day in September.
It’s just bueno for business.
“Boxing is one of the primary sports we support,” De La Hoya said of Mexicans and Mexican Americans.
“I’m a proud American and always will be, but fighting on those days, those are special days for the Mexican national. … It’s a representation of me supporting and being there for my family … and for (other Mexican) families here in the States.”
De La Hoya the promoter, though, is not above some gamesmanship. He left tickets for the fight for his former trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr., who had another fallout with his son this week.
Manny Pacquiao also reportedly accepted a briefcase with $250,000 to lure the Filipino star to the Golden Boy stable, which houses 47 fighters. Top Rank chairman Bob Arum later gave Pacquiao $1 million, and the courts have yet to decide where he contractually belongs.
De La Hoya, who has won 10 titles in a record-tying six weight classes, signed to this fight corporate sponsors Bally’s Total Fitness, Starwood Hotels, Southwest Airlines, Tequila Cazadores and Tecate beer.
Of course, it helps that De La Hoya’s opponent is boxing’s pound-for-pound champ.
De La Hoya wants a more “open-book” policy for fighters’ purses and for the sport — already diluted by an alphabet soup of sanctioning bodies and threatened by cage fighting — to showcase its elite fighters to corporate America.
So who needs who more — boxing or the 1992 Olympic gold medalist?
“I will always need boxing,” De La Hoya said. “Boxing is what made me. It’s a sport I have so much passion for and I love, and obviously that’s one of the reasons I turned promoter.
“To continue receiving from the sport and contributing to it — it works both ways — I owe everything I have to boxing.”
