Oscar De La Hoya is the most powerful man in boxing.
Power as in influence and prestige. Sure, that terrific left hook and competitive fire won him an Olympic gold medal, world championships in six different weight divisions, and earned him millions, but the power he wields nowadays comes while wearing designer suits.
De La Hoya is as big a success outside the ring as he was inside it. But there’s still that little itch he thinks about scratching from time to time.
De La Hoya will be in town this week to promote Saturday’s Lightweight Lightning event at the Erwin Center, a pay-per-view pitting four lightweights format. The main event will feature two guys casual boxing fans have never heard of (Edwin Valero and Antonio Pitalua) but mainstream boxing fanatics are excited about this bout as well as the return of Austin’s Jesus Chavez, a two-time world champion who is facing rugged Michael Katsidis of Australia.
De La Hoya isn’t throwing any punches Saturday and better yet, he isn’t taking any. As the president of 8-year-old Golden Boy Promotions, he is obsessed with bringing boxing back into the mainstream in this country. The 36-year-old De La Hoya is now a beacon, beckoning former boxing fans to re-elevate the sport that’s given him so much.
After 45 career fights, his mental faculties are there and he’s living a dream: he has good looks, a beautiful family, a successful company and enough money to help bail out GM.
So why is he so bothered?
Well, there’s this little deal with him thinking he can still fight at an elite level.
Funny thing about these boxers: it doesn’t matter if they’re making millions outside the ring because the thirst to compete is still there. It’s like a tickle in the throat that won’t clear. The last time we saw De La Hoya in the ring, he was beaten badly by the younger, faster Manny Pacquaio. After eight rounds, his corner had no problem convincing the boss that he’d had enough.
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddy Roach said before the fight that his charge would win because Oscar couldn’t pull the trigger anymore. ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas said Pacquiao would win big because Oscar “always finds a way to blow it in big fights.” After the fight, De La Hoya told Roach, “Freddy, you were right. I don’t have it anymore.”
Still, De La Hoya has yet to announce his retirement.
“That fight was such a great indication that I should hang them up,” he said in a radio interview Monday. “My body is obviously not the same and my mind ? when I go to train and wake up at 4:30 a.m. to go run ? it just doesn’t feel the same. Then again, you have those little demons telling me, ‘I can still do this.’ “
He can’t, even if he is the brightest star in boxing not named Pacquiao. While he contemplates fighting again, his sport has fallen from its lofty perch in American eyes. In this country, popularity usually goes the way of the heavyweights and since there is no Lennox Lewis, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Evander Holyfield or Mike Tyson ruling the big boy division, interest has waned on a grand scale.
De La Hoya did his part to keep the fire burning in the 1990s and became the most successful box office draw the sport has ever seen. His 19 pay per views fights have generated nearly $700 million in revenue and while there may never be another human ATM like him, he can keep the sport visible, if not viable, in the coming years.
But not by fighting.
Unlike many boxers who go broke after retirement ? two recent examples are Tyson and Julio Cesar Chavez ? De La Hoya has the best retirement plan going. One could argue that he’s recession proof because he has smartly turned his own drawing power in the ring into a success outside of it.
In short, he is boxing’s new power base. Old guard promoters Don King and Bob Arum have ruled the sport for the better part of 40 years, through the title reigns of Ali, Holmes, Foreman and Tyson. A single day separates these 77 year olds in age, but they can’t live forever.
Now De La Hoya is taking his place as the leading man in boxing and one of the most powerful in sports. Poised to lead this sport into a future where it will continue to compete with a growing mob of mixed martial arts fans, his visibility and decision-making will be under the same microscope that he fought under. His goal is to limit the number of title belts and make a world championship mean something again. That’s a tall task.
He’s off to a great start with promotional rights to the most of the fighters on the card, shared rights to Pacquiao with Arum, and exclusive rights to Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins, and 35 other fighters, including Austin’s James Kirkland, a junior middleweight who is in line for a title shot.
So why not just promote?
“The competitive side of me is making it the most difficult,” he said. “Those are the competitive juices that keep on flowing. You look at George Foreman at 45 or 50 years and he says ‘I can beat this guy’, then goes out and does it. It’s tough. I have to keep on hoping that one day I will come up with the right decision.”
The Pacquiao loss was the unofficial end of De La Hoya as a world-class fighter. Even De La Hoya would have a problem disputing four losses in his last seven fights.
While his ring skills have admittedly eroded, his business acumen is sharper than any punch he ever threw. After Hopkins stopped him with a body shot in 2004, De La Hoya hired him to be president of Golden Boy East Coast. After losing to Mosley a second time, Oscar hired Sugar Shane to head up Golden Boy fighter relations.
It’s a great alliance of boxers who are in the minority ? fighters who have taken care of their money. The Golden Boy ascension was completed in May 2007 when his split-decision loss to Floyd Mayweather, Jr. scored a knockout at the cash register for De La Hoya the promoter ?2.2 million pay-per-view buys which generated in excess of $120 million, breaking the record of 1.99 million set in the Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield ‘ear’ match.
So to sum it up, De La Hoya is an American success story who followed a successful athletic career with an even more successful business career. Let’s call him the Magic Johnson of boxing.
Makes sense. Even Magic stuck around too long.
