LAS VEGAS — At the final news conference for both fighters this week, Richard Schaefer, chief executive officer for Golden Boy Promotions — Oscar De La Hoya’s company — made an admission difficult to debate.
He said that for all of De La Hoya’s magnetic popularity, tonight’s World Boxing Council junior-middleweight title defense by his boss wouldn’t be the megafight it has become if it were not for the undefeated challenger, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Although that’s true, there’s a flipside. Mayweather would not be receiving a fraction of the attention or money (a guaranteed $10 million) if not for De La Hoya as the fight promoter and opponent.
“Oscar is a good businessman. We really appreciate him giving us the opportunity because he really didn’t have to do that. We didn’t think he would take the fight,” said Leonard Ellerbe, Mayweather’s longtime adviser and confidant.
Despite Mayweather’s boast of “This is my era,” he realizes that of all the preceding fighters who have been recognized as the world’s best pound-for-pound boxers, a designation he now owns, he has been among the least revered.
If boxing fans were given the choice to watch Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao fight on the same night but at different venues, Pacquiao, from a smaller weight class, would be the bigger draw. So would, for that matter, former middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins, admittedly past his prime but still active. And others.
Not that any of this is Mayweather’s fault, really. He won an Olympic bronze medal, compared to De La Hoya’s gold, but at age 30, the brash challenger and betting favorite in this fight is at the top of his game.
Mayweather’s 37-0 record (24 knockouts) includes titles in four weight divisions in a span of 10 years. He did it by beating every one in his path, including a 2001 junior-lightweight showdown with a then-unbeaten, supposedly bigger puncher in Diego Corrales.
But not even that five-knockdown, 10th-round TKO win over Corrales, in the same ring he’ll fight in tonight, gave Mayweather the distinction he thought was his due. He may well have won that fight under any circumstances, but the fact Corrales had been dogged by personal problems and had a terrible training camp tarnished the victory in the eyes of some fight experts.
Of the opponents Mayweather has defeated since, it could be argued only a couple presented much of a threat or had much name recognition.
They were, for example, two decision wins (one of them narrow) over Jose Luis Castillo in 2002 (both WBC lightweight title bouts) and his two fights last year, outpointing a very fast but suspect-chinned Zab Judah and decisioning rugged but slow Carlos Baldomir for the WBC welterweight title.
As for Mayweather’s most dominant victory, his TKO of Arturo Gatti after six rounds in 2005? Many called it a predictable blowout against a brave yet stationary target.
A win over De La Hoya, though, might give Mayweather much of the legacy he so desires.
“I want my daughter, my kids and my grandkids to be able to hold their heads high and say, ‘(I) was the best fighter to ever put on a pair of gloves,’ ” Mayweather said.
Despite Mayweather’s talk of this being his last fight — win or lose — there is good reason to believe that’s not true.
He’ll likely not retire on a defeat, not with so much ego attached to this match, and he surely won’t walk away from boxing if he wins what many people predict will be an epic bout.
In fact, he admits he is open to a big-bucks rematch if the verdict of this fight is close or ends in controversy.
Bursting with confidence, outwardly at least, Mayweather is predicting a victory that will leave no doubt as to who is boxing’s best, even though downgrading De La Hoya as too old and a part-time fighter may have not been the best approach.
“I can make an A-class fighter look like a D-class fighter, and you guys don’t give me the (credit) I deserve,” Mayweather said. “I didn’t live in Muhammad Ali’s era, or Sugar Ray Robinson’s era. This is Floyd Mayweather’s era. I’m only beating the fighters they put in front of me.”
As much as he professes to detest his popular foe, Mayweather is on record as saying he was inspired to box as a teenager after watching De La Hoya achieve early stardom in the Olympics.
“That’s the only way I can be who I want to be,” Mayweather said of trying to ascend to De La Hoya’s level. “It’s the only challenge left for me.”
Until this fight, De La Hoya had been trained by Mayweather’s father, Floyd Sr., but replaced him with Freddie Roach because of the awkwardness of a father versus son.
While together, however, De La Hoya said the senior Mayweather told him how his son is “so jealous of you; how he wants to be like you.”
Tonight, at long last, he’ll get that chance to do something about it.
