Oscar De La Hoya sees Manny Pacquiao as a stepping-stone ? not a stumbling block ? to his dream of doing his farewell fight at the historic Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.
He also wants to win in stunning fashion ? by knockout.
“Above all, I want a win over Manny Pacquiao. I want a knockout (because) this is somewhat personal and I will prepare hard to achieve it (by knockout),” De La Hoya told Salvador Rodriguez of La Opinion, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the US and the most-read broadsheet in Southern California next to the Los Angeles Times.
The Estadio Azteca is the fifth-largest stadium in the world with 105,000 seats.
“It?s been a dream of mine (to fight in Estadio Azteca) but first thing is to knock out Manny Pacquiao on Dec. 6 and then to fight in the Estadio Azteca,” said De La Hoya, brimming with confidence that the 12-round welterweight war will surpass the 2.1 million pay-per-view buys that was set last year when he faced Floyd Mayweather.
“I am sure that I am going to sell three million or less because this is a historic fight that the world will want to see and this is the reason why we decided to face Pacquiao. We will go for another record,” said De La Hoya, who has been heavily criticized for picking on a lighter opponent in Pacquiao, but is adamant that the fight is not a going to turn out to be a freak show.
“In the Philippines, they believe that (Pacquiao) is going to knock me out. I doubt it a lot but Manny is a fighter who is very strong and fast and (his style) can cause problems. Once, I was overconfident (in a middleweight fight) against Felix Sturm and it was a tougher fight than what we expected so this time I will not be overconfident.”
De La Hoya also expressed the belief that he will easily conquer the 147-lb limit during the eve of the fight since he is “naturally a welterweight.”
“I am not going to have problems and in this aspect, I will have no worries. My concern is to knock Manny Pacquiao out,” said De La Hoya, whose Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) once signed the Filipino to a juicy seven-fight contract that was later dumped in the waste basket when Pacquiao opted to stick it out with Bob Arum of Top Rank.
The 16,000-seat MGM Grand will filled to the brim come fight after tickets that were made available to the public sold out in two hours last Wednesday.
Only a fraction were sold to fight fans since the lion?s share have all been allocated to GBP, Top Rank and officials of the MGM Mirage who will use the tickets to lure the high-rollers to their gaming tables.
Meanwhile, Pacquiao and De La Hoya face off on Oct. 1 for the first time since the fight was formally announced in the kick-off leg of a six-city press tour at the Statue of Liberty in New York.
From New York, they will proceed on separate private planes to Chicago (Sears Tower on Oct. 2), Houston (Space Center, 11:00 a.m., Oct. 3), San Antonio (The Alamo, 3 p.m., Oct. 3), San Francisco (Golden Gate Park-Chrissy Field, 12 noon, Oct. 4) and Los Angeles (Whittier Boulevard Arch, 12 noon, Oct. 7).
Select members of Team Pacquiao will take a commercial flight to the Big Apple on Tuesday night and from there, they will board “a Dassault Falcon” private plane, according to Arum, to complete the itinerary.
