I hate to say I told you so, but…I told you so.

I told you that the Oscar De La Hoya – Manny Pacquiao fight was a mismatch. I told you it would be a one-sided beating. I told you that it could be a career ending assault.

I was right about all of that.

I just had the wrong guy.

What happened was the unexpected end of De La Hoya’s career. Oscar suffered through eight one-sided rounds before his corner stopped the fight. There was not even a round that you could almost give Oscar, and he took a physical beating far worse than anything he’s ever taken.

This was not the Oscar De La Hoya that was in the ring with Shane Mosley, Felix Trinidad or Bernard Hopkins. Hell, it wasn’t even the same Oscar that was in the ring with Floyd Mayweather. This was a shadow of what Oscar used to be.

Clearly the weight loss hurt him. When you weigh in at 145 pounds, your lowest weight in 12 years, then only rehydrate to 147 on fight day, you are not healthy. This was clear in round one, when Oscar just couldn’t let his hands go. Freddie Roach was right about Oscar, but I doubt even he knew how right he’d be.

Oscar De La Hoya is a shot fighter. He should never again walk to the ring with gloves on. He should never again make us buy a pay-per-view with a horrendous undercard. He should stick to promoting and leave the fighting to fighters.

Having said all that, I don’t want to take anything away from Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao fought an absolutely beautiful fight and deserves all the credit in the world for being able to execute (Mexicute?) on the level that he did.

But make no mistake about it — the story in this fight is the death of Oscar De La Hoya the professional prize fighter, not the accomplishment of Manny Pacquiao for exposing him. In the same way Leon Spinks and Danny Williams were not victors over Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, they were merely the benefactors of great timing and depleted skills.

From here, Pacquiao will likely face junior-welterweight champion Ricky Hatton, and if the Internet message boards are any indicator, Pacquiao will be a 20-1 favorite. In the eyes of the average Pacquiao fan, he’d now be favored over both Klitschkos at the same time.

Pacquiao is a beast. But he is beatable. Just as Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez have shown, Pacquiao has holes. Freddie Roach is doing a great job of completing his fighter, but the holes remain.

I think that Hatton’s mauling, in-fighting style will give Pacquiao problems, as would Miguel Cotto’s style for the same reasons. I think that Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams would give him problems with their size and volume punching, not to mention their inability to get hurt. I think Juan Diaz would be a war, and once again Juan Manuel Marquez would dance circles around him. If only Marquez could stay on his feet, he’d be 2-0 against Manny. But he can’t and could lose to him once again because of it.

There are a lot of fighters out there that will make great fights with Pacquiao. I am leaving Pacquiao at number two on the pound-for-pound list, despite HBO trying to force it down everyone’s throat that Manny is already number one. I judge pound-for-pound as a whole, not based on their last fight, and the fact remains that Joe Calzaghe has had a better career, and a better last two years. Calzaghe is still the best fighter in the world, but Pacquiao just made it a little closer.

On a side note, I want to express my extreme disappointment with the HBO Pay-Per-View telecast. It is not HBO’s fault, but Golden Boy Promotions provided three complete mismatches on the undercard, resulting in a whopping nine minutes of undercard action, and 1 hour and 51 minutes of talking about boxing before the main event started. For $54.95 (in caveman SD, not overpriced HD), I expect competitive, good fights. What we were subjected to was one or two rounds of commercials for future Golden Boy fights.

For the first (and likely only) time, I agree with Dana White. Boxing can learn a great deal from the way that the UFC puts together their shows, particularly in person. Crowd involvement and no down time equals a good fan experience. Terrible undercard matchups, separated by 45 minutes of talking about the same thing doesn’t cut it.

In the post Oscar De La Hoya world of boxing, efforts are going to have to be made to please the fans. Lower ticket prices, less pay-per-views (and lower prices on those) and a better in-person fan experience are the things that HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Versus and all of the promoters around the world are going to have to work on.

I may have been wrong about the winner of this fight, but I was right that this was a bad night for boxing. A good night for Manny Pacquiao and his fans, but a bad night in the long run for boxing.

Share this story...

Discussion

One comment for “The End of Oscar De La Hoya, Boxer”

Post a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.