just a twinge of irony in Manny Pacquiao’s eight round destruction of Oscar De La Hoya last Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. For years, De La Hoya had picked on a collection of smaller and older men past their primes to build his legacy. This bout here, which they dubbed ‘The Dream Match’, became a seemingly never ending nightmare. Not just for De La Hoya the prizefighter, but for De La Hoya’s promotional outfit.
Not only was ‘The Golden Boy’ supposed to trample all over the Filipino icon, but to also do boffo box office numbers, his typically huge pay-per-view figures and to land another shot across the bow at archrival Top Rank and his former promoter Bob Arum. Cue Jay-Z, this was the takeover.
Instead, tickets (which were once announced as being sold out in mere minutes) could be had for below face value, pay-per-view projections for this bout set forth by Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank and HBO Pay-Per-View will most likely not be met, but worse than all that, De La Hoya was battered from pillar to post. There have been drive-by shootings that haven’t been as one-sided, and muggings that were much more competitive. This wasn’t so much a boxing match but a public flogging.
While ‘the Pac Man’ darted in-and-out and overwhelmed De La Hoya with a barrage of punches, Oscar was about as slow and immobile as his new statue at the Staples Center.
On this night, he became David Diaz.
So on one night, Golden Boy Promotions lost their defining fighter and HBO a cash cow that could be counted on to bail them out every year. The manner in which he was beaten and then subsequently quit on his stool has irrevocably damaged his brand. The only way this could’ve been more embarrassing was if fishnets and high heels were involved. Both aforementioned entities have had all their eggs in the De La Hoya basket. On this night, he became Humpty Dumpty, and Richard Schaefer, Ross Greenburg and ’24/7′ will never be able to put him back together again.
It’s a brand new business now, according to some in the industry. No longer does Golden Boy have all the leverage in securing influence with HBO. Golden Boy Promotions without a truly marketable De La Hoya anchoring the company are the Cleveland Cavaliers without LeBron James. Sure, they still have marquee names like Bernard Hopkins and Shane Mosley, but they fail to bring the cache and profile of De La Hoya. The two-headed tyranny that was Golden Boy and HBO has been beheaded thanks to a Filipino freedom fighter who just may have altered the boxing landscape.
It’s a fickle business, and the tides can turn at anytime. It was just seven weeks ago in Atlantic City, New Jersey when an ashen faced Arum would slowly walk out of the press conference, stunned by just how badly his young star Kelly Pavlik had been dominated by Hopkins. On the dais that night, Hopkins would state that on the night of December 6th that there wouldn’t be a breath left in Arum’s body. For weeks the veteran promoter seemed to be in almost a state of depression over the state of his company and the business at large.
But this weekend you saw an ebullient Arum, cheeks getting as red as roses, celebrating Pacquiao’s win. One observer remarked, ‘Bob won?t even need Viagra tonight.? Arum said that Pacquiao’s win ranks among the two most memorable he had ever been a part of, alongside George Foreman’s stunning knockout of Michael Moorer in 1994. While on the flipside you saw Golden Boy executives following a beaten and dejected De La Hoya back to his dressing room, with forlorn looks on their faces as they trudged along the corridor that led to the bowels of the arena. Schaefer accompanied Oscar to the hospital and you almost got the sense that the former Swiss Banker was there not to just be there with his fighter, but to treat his own shock.
‘The Executioner’ was thought to be much too old to defeat Pavlik. And Pacquiao was believed to be much too small to down De La Hoya. It wasn’t so much that these companies lost big fights, but who they had lost them to that made the defeats that much more painful.
Hopkins would take Schaefer’s place at the post-fight press conference. And while everything was cordial between the two sides, make no doubt about it, the greatest rivalry in boxing today is not between any two fighters, or Mexico versus Puerto Rico, but Top Rank and Golden Boy. They are the two superpowers of the boxing world (you can decide who is the USA and who is the USSR) and in place of the ‘Cold War’ that existed between the two companies for years, something much better is taking place now between the two factions – fights. And every match made between the two becomes a battle for influence, power and control of the marketplace. The staffs of the two companies are cordial to one another, but there is an underlying tension. Simply put, they don’t like each other. One company (Top Rank) believes that their competitors aren’t really promoters and can’t develop talent. While they (Golden Boy) believe that their rivals do business in an archaic manner and have hurt boxing throughout the years with the traditional ways of controlling the sport. Not to mention the colorful history between De La Hoya and Arum.
October 18th was won by Golden Boy. Chalk up December 6th for Top Rank. January 24th is another pivotal battle as Shane Mosley (one of Golden Boy’s partners) faces Antonio Margarito at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
But it’s doubtful that any loss will be as damaging as De La Hoya’s was to Golden Boy.
They thought they had scheduled a mismatch.
And they did.
Someone just forgot to tell Pacquiao.
VINDICATED
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach was asked if this fight was more personal than any other bout he had been involved in and if he had gained full vindication with Pacquiao’s dominance.
“Yes and yes,” were his replies. “It was a little more personal. I trained Oscar before and I thought we’d be together for a long time and it only lasted one fight and he replaced me and he told me he’d never fight without me in his corner again. But yeah, there’s a little bit of get-back at him, I’m happy about that. It’s great.”
While many scoffed at him, Roach was instrumental in making this fight a reality. He was convinced that his man (even moving up in weight significantly) could handily defeat the 2008 version of De La Hoya. And he was absolutely correct ? De La Hoya simply couldn’t pull the trigger anymore. Beyond that, his legs looked worn and his reflexes dulled – all of which were apparent in his bout against Steve Forbes back in May.
The technical improvements made by Pacquiao the last few years are striking. There was a time when he was just strictly a jab-jab-left cross puncher, where invariably his back leg would always lift up, causing him to lose balance and alignment. Now, Pacquiao has a much wider array of combinations and he can actually box effectively backing up. He has become a complete fighting package.
And his success from 112 to now 147 pounds is nothing short of remarkable.
“He’s getting a little older, he’s a lot thicker than he once was. He’s not the skinny little 112-pounder we once knew. He’s matured, he’s a man, now, he’s not a boy,” said Roach. “And he reminds me of Henry Armstrong, the great fighter of the past. He’s a throwback. He can fight in any era. Manny Pacquiao is just a machine, he’s very awkward, and he’s hard to read. I knew the in-and-out motion would give Oscar so much trouble. That’s why I said he couldn’t pull the trigger because he couldn’t time Manny. He didn’t know if Manny was coming or going.”
MEXICUTIONER De La Hoya had promised all Mexicans retribution and revenge for all the past Mexican fighters who had been vanquished by Pacquiao. Instead, he would suffer an ignominious defeat at the blazing hands of this whirling dervish.
Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, Juan Manuel Marquez and now, De La Hoya, have all fallen to Pacquiao. But Pacquiao downplays the talk of his success against Mexican boxers.
?Like I said to all of you, nothing personal,” he would tell the media. “It’s not between Mexican and Filipino, but it’s about the performances in the ring to make people happy.” He would add, “It just happens that in my times there’s a lot of Mexican boxers in my weight divisions. It’s not my intentions to fight all the Mexicans. I love Mexicans also.”
Roach was asked if his charge would face another Mexican, Antonio Margarito.
“We’re brave,” he would say. “But we’re not that brave.”
So I chimed in and asked, “What about Wladimir Klitschko then?”
“I’d let him face Klitschko before I would Margarito,” replied Roach, with a chuckle.
RETIRED?The question regarding De La Hoya is pretty simple: was that the last we saw of him inside the squared circle? Will he participate in a farewell fight? Or will he rationalize his performance by saying he was over-trained or simply couldn’t make the welterweight limit effectively?
Regardless of his decision, Arum was gracious enough to say about his former prot?g?, “What he did for boxing, what a shining light he was for the sport and how he created interest in the sport and really helped the sport for so many years. So if he retires, God bless him and thanks for all he did for the sport of boxing.”
RANDOM THOUGHTS
– Pacquiao-De La Hoya was the worst pay-per-view undercard I have ever witnessed. Three fights, and not a single one saw round three. And it was so bad, that for the first time I can ever recall, they had to actually bring in a standby bout (which I understand was not televised).
I know that the undercards don’t drive pay-per-view purchases with the casual fan. But cards of this particularly low quality alienate the remaining loyalists who faithfully buy these shows.
C’mon, you guys can do better than this.
– Ticket brokers/scalpers are a fact of life. But I think there’s something particularly unsavory about how so many tickets for the biggest events in boxing end up in their hands before the general public has any chance of getting them. I think everyone got what they deserved for this promotion as the secondary market collapsed and tickets could be gotten for well below face value.
Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but maybe it’s time to start instituting some laws that mandate a certain percentage of tickets must be made available to the public.
Arum told me that it would be difficult, to almost impossible, to do business without the deals they cut with the ticket brokers. You could also argue that it’s terrible business to continue to exploit and take advantage of your consumers.
– From as early as the second round, the body language and facial expressions from De La Hoya said it all – we made a huge miscalculation here. I’m in some trouble.
As the bout headed into the middle rounds you got the strong sense that unless De La Hoya landed a ‘lottery punch’ he was not going to win this fight.
FINAL FLURRIES
Did Angelo Dundee ever think that he’d be part of another Holmes-Ali?….For a big fight weekend, Vegas was pretty quiet, I have to say. It was unusual to be able to get booths and seats at the Rouge and Zuri lounge on a Friday night….What was ironic was that in walking through the MGM Grand casino, there was a row of poker tables with the images of Pacquiao and De La Hoya on them that were closed down due to a lack of action…..While I think ’24/7′ has jumped the shark, HBO Sports still produces top-notch documentaries and I expect nothing different with ‘Breaking the Huddle: The Integration of College Football’, examining the integration of college football in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. This will debut on Tuesday December 16th (10:00-11:00 ET/PT)….
