Losing to Manny Pacquiao wasn’t exactly Oscar de la Hoya’s idea of a retirement party and at 35, the Golden Boy might just come back to fight, if only to salvage the pride that he built in the ring since turning pro in 1992.
De la Hoya hasn’t closed the door on prolonging his career. After his “Dream Match” turned into a nightmare in Las Vegas last month, he hesitated to make a hasty decision on whether or not to call it quits. “We will see what happens,” said De la Hoya when asked about the future.
Pride will probably bring De la Hoya back for one or maybe two more fights as he looks to hang up his gloves in a blaze of glory.
“It is always important to De la Hoya that he comes out a winner,” wrote Graham Houston in Boxing Monthly magazine. “It would be tough for De la Hoya to come to terms with defeat in this contest (against Pacquiao). It’s one thing to lose to superb welterweights or a Hall of Fame middleweight but to get licked by a lightweight would, I think, be a sizable blow to De la Hoya’s not inconsiderable ego.”
Pacquiao didn’t only beat De la Hoya. He destroyed the Golden Boy. And that’s something even more difficult to live down.
Pacquiao’s demolition job was so convincing that in the seventh round, the three judges scored it 10-8 even if De la Hoya never went down. Two of the three judges awarded every round to Pacquiao and the third generously gave one to De la Hoya.
When De la Hoya surrendered at the end of eight rounds, the scorecards read 79-72 (Stanley Christoudoulou) and 80-71 twice (Adalaide Byrd and Dave Moretti).
“With De la Hoya barely offering token resistance in the eighth, the decision to retire him from the mismatch came as a relief,” said Houston. “He had been knocked around and humiliated quite enough for one night – and he even had to endure boos at the end. De la Hoya didn’t have it in him, mentally or physically, to make a real stand. It was embarrassing to watch, from ringside, as he was made to look like a tired old man of the ring, 35 going on 55.”
Angelo Dundee, the legendary trainer who was hired as a consultant in De la Hoya’s team, said, “the kid came up empty.” In a post-mortem, Dundee hinted that De la Hoya could’ve worked harder in the gym. It seemed that De la Hoya made the weight limit of 147 pounds more through diet than working out.
“I wasn’t running the show,” said Dundee. “I couldn’t say anything. They would have said I was just an old fart. I was with George Foreman when he won back the heavyweight title and George knew an older fighter can’t train like he’s still a kid.” Dundee meant that an older fighter must work doubly hard in the gym to prepare for a bout because of his age.
An insider in De la Hoya’s camp said it’s not easy to impose on the Golden Boy to train because “he’s the boss.”
“If he doesn’t want to wake up early to run or if he doesn’t want to do extra rounds in sparring, you just take it because Oscar is Oscar,” said the insider, a recent Manila visitor.
Aside from pride, what will tempt De la Hoya to continue fighting is money. As both a fighter and promoter, De la Hoya is in a unique position for a double take.
De la Hoya’s fight against Pacquiao brought in at least 1.25 million pay-per-view buys, a phenomenal rate considering the previous two HBO shows – Bernard Hopkins versus Kelly Pavlik last Oct. 18 and Joe Calzaghe-Roy Jones last Nov. 8 – generated less than 250,000 each.
Promoter Bob Arum said when the final accounting is done, the “Dream Match” might wind up with 1.6 to two million hits, which he described as a “homerun.”
In his career, De la Hoya has figured in 19 pay-per-view fights, totalling 14 million hits or about $700 million. He has breached the million mark in four bouts – Hopkins (one million) in 2004, Felix Trinidad (1.4 million) in 1999, Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather (2.15 million) last year.
No fighter in history has drawn more pay-per-view buys than De la Hoya. Mike Tyson is second in the list with 12.4 million buys or $545 million and Evander Holyfield is third with $543 million.
No doubt, the “Dream Match” certified that De la Hoya still has the magic touch at the box office.
“While some had hoped the fight might finish closer to the record 2.15 million purchases for the Mayweather-De la Hoya fight, the ‘Dream Match’ was a success in tough economic times,” said an AFP report. “That could entice De la Hoya to delay retirement and make promoters sweeten the pot for Pacquiao’s next fight.”
A possible scenario would be for Pacquiao to beat Ricky Hatton and Mayweather – if he comes out of retirement – then face De la Hoya in a rematch assuming the Golden Boy is able to pick up the pieces of his shattered pride.
Whatever happens, Pacquiao will be right smack in the money equation of the boxing stakes.