It?s hard to imagine Oscar De La Hoya venturing into the ring again as anything other than a promoter after his feeble showing against Manny Pacquiao on Dec. 6, and his legacy may be that he was able to sustain his illusory mirage for as long as he did. The 1.25 million pay-per-view buys logged by Pacquiao-De La Hoya is testimony to that. He might have retained the devotion of the tabloid television shows, but it has been several years since the Golden Boy had been a relevant figure in the sport.
How much will boxing miss De La Hoya?
How much would the world of music be affected if Michael Jackson never made another record?
Having defied the experts with his one-sided domination of De La Hoya, PacMan (who won fights at 130, 135, and 147 pounds this year alone) should be a shoo-in for Fighter of the Year, while Freddie Roach is a near-lock for his third Trainer of the Year title, but don?t expect to see Pacquiao fighting at welterweight again. His next fight (presumably against Ricky Hatton) will almost certainly be at junior welterweight – suddenly the hottest division in boxing.
Assuming World Boxing Council president Jose Suliaman gives his blessing, Showtime has already slated an April 4 junior welterweight unification bout between WBC champion Timothy Bradley and Kendall Holt, who won a split decision over sub opponent Demetrius Hopkins to retain his World Boxing Organization belt last weekend.
The sanctioning bodies wouldn?t even have to sign off on a Pacquiao-Hatton fight, since neither holds an actual 140-pound title. It seems unlikely that PacMan will ever defend the WBC lightweight title he won from David Diaz last summer. Hatton is recognized as champion only by a boxing magazine (?The Ring?) and by a rogue sanctioning body (the International Boxing Organization), but both would happily sanction the megabout. (And if the prospect of facing the winner of this mini-tournament wouldn?t bring Floyd Mayweather Jr. out of retirement, then nothing will.)
Ironically, as one assesses his career, De La Hoya?s brief stay at 140 pounds in the prime of his career might have represented his best fighting weight, but after winning the WBC junior welterweight title in his 1996 first fight with Julio Cesar Chavez, he defended it only once before moving up to 147.
What were arguably the six biggest fights of his career (Felix Trinidad, two bouts against Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins, Mayweather and Pacquiao) occurred after that – and Oscar lost each one.
Pacquiao, in the meantime, returned to a hero?s welcome in the Philippines, where last Wednesday he celebrated his 30th birthday. Roach and promoter Bob Arum were among the 1,500 guests, along with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Gen. Alexander Yano, the Filipino military strongman. Pacquiao rivals Marco Antonio Barrera and Diaz also showed up for the part. De La Hoya did not, but given the $11 million Pacquiao got for the win, you might say that De La Hoya paid for the birthday bash.
A Class by himself
Lennox Lewis headed up the list when the International Boxing Hall of Fame announced its Class of 2009 last week. The only unsettling aspect of the longtime champion?s impending induction comes in the reminder that it has been five years since Lewis last boxed in anger. What historians will no doubt recall as the Dark Ages of the heavyweight division have been with us at least that long, then, with no end in sight.
The latest crop of enshrinees once again points to a fatal flaw in the Hall?s procedure, which automatically guarantees induction to a minimum of three from the ?modern? category. Although Lewis was a clear-cut choice, the same could not be said of Orlando Canizales and Brian Mitchell. Not only does their inclusion serve to dilute the overall process, but throwing the three of them together in the same room is, frankly, an insult to Lewis.
That said, induction weekend next June promises to be a special one, with a trio of non-combatants slated to be installed: longtime publicist and matchmaker Bobby Goodman, journalist-turned-broadcaster Larry Merchant and Hugh McIlvanney, the Boxing Bard of Scotland.
A split decision
Arum, who pioneered split-feed telecasts in the 1970s, plans to revive the concept Feb. 21. Kelly Pavlik will defend his middleweight titles against Marco Antonio Rubio in Youngstown, Ohio, while Miguel Cotto fights Michael Jennings for the vacant WBO welterweight belt in Atlantic City. There will be full cards at both venues, with each being televised to the other. . . .
Now in its fourth season and on its third network, ?The Contender? will once again return to New England for its finale. Host Tony Danza and the last two men standing in the ongoing cruiserweight tourney will be at Foxwoods on Feb. 25 with the final bout to air live on Versus. (The local favorite, Brockton?s Tim Flamos, was not involved in the first three bouts, taped in Singapore in October.) What may have been the classic moment of the first three episodes came when the 42-year-old Flamos told Danza that ?Taxi? was his favorite show when he was growing up. ?Taxi? went off the air in 1983. . . . Foxwoods is also the front-runner to host the March 14 Chad Dawson-Antonio Tarver rematch. Dawson, the WBC light heavyweight champion from New Haven, Conn., fought eight times in the Mashantucket ring earlier in his career, but hasn?t been back since his 2004 TKO of Carl Daniels. . . . HBO?s Jan. 17 Andre Berto-Luis Collazo WBC welterweight title bout, originally slated for New York before the John Duddy-Ronald Hearns co-feature fell apart, landed at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Miss., with Spain?s Sergio Martinez facing New Yorker Joe Greene underneath.
