Ring Legend Oscar De La Hoya today announced his retirement from boxing after a sixteen year professional career. He had set the press conference up to announce his further plans and chose retirement as he felt he could no longer compete at the elite level. De La Hoya was an Olympic Gold Medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics before turning pro with an amateur record of 220 wins and 6 losses. Right from the start of his pro career Oscar was a big name and has probably fought a higher percentage of his career on televised cards then any other boxer in history. De La Hoya’s pro career took off fast and afterjust 22 fights (he’d won all but two of them by knockout), he was already a champion in three weight divisions having won the lightly regarded WBO Junior Lightweight title, the WBO and IBF Lightweight titles and the WBC and Linear Junior Welterweight titles when he became the first man to stop Julio Cesar Chavez.
De La Hoya defended the title just once before moving up and defeating WBC and Linear Welterweight Champion Pernell Whitaker. The fight was razr thin with both fighters being on the canvas, but De La Hoya took a split decision to earn him world titles in four weight divisions after just 24 professional fights. After five successful defences which included a rematch with Julio Cesar Chavez and a win over former multi time world champion Hector Camacho, De La Hoya met WBA champion Ike Quartey in the first blockbuster fight of his career. Sure the Chavez fights and the Whitaker fights were big, but this fight matched him up with a fighter of his generation and an extremely dangerous one at that. Both men fought an even first five rounds before the fight exploded in the sixth. Within seconds of the sixth, De La Hoya dropped Quartey with a left hook. De La Hoya went on the attack and the two traded for the first time in the fight. One minute into the round, Quartey dropped Oscar with a counter left hook. Both men tried to get the advantage for the remainer of the round, but it was Quartey’s jab that was starting to take over. Quartey took control of the fight and seemed to have a slight lead going into the final round. Oscar stormed out at the start of the 12th and put Quartey down for the 2nd time. Sensing he had his man hurt, De La Hoya fired barrage after barrage on Quartey on the ropes. The beating would have dropped most men and arguably could have been stopped there and then. Quartey survived and Oscar punched himself out leaving the fight to go to the cards where De La Hoya prevailed by split decision.
Seven months later De La Hoya faced the other champion in the division, long time IBF champion Felix Trinidad. Trinidad had held the belt since De La Hoya turned pro and had made 14 defences of the title including a one sided decision win over Pernell Whitaker. The fight was, at the time, the richest non Heavyweight fight of all-time and while there was a lot of hype around the fight, the action was sporadic. De La Hoya appeared to get the better of the early rounds before putting on a boxing clinic during the middle rounds. Trinidad was unable to find De La Hoya to connect on his power shots and was being thoroughly outboxed. Then De La Hoya did something that has defined his career in many critics eyes, he stopped fighting thinking he was ahead and let Trinidad back in the fight. Trinidad’s aggression dominated the final three rounds and with a few close rounds early on which the judges saw his way, he took a majority decision and De La Hoya’s zero.
Despite some big wins late in his career, De La Hoya was over his peak after the Trinidad fight. That’s not to say that he didn’t improve or what not, but achievement wise his later career hardly matches up to the early part of his career. He lost pretty comfortably to Shane Mosley in a bid for the titles Trinidad left behind before moving up to 154lbs and defeating Javier Castillejo. His greatest win was probably the 11th round stoppage of Fernando Vargas in 2002 after Vargas had called him out for years. Vargas worked Oscar over in the first six rounds before Oscar took the fight over with his jab, opening up a cut under Vargas’ right eye. Vargas came back in rounds 9 and 10 before De La Hoya rocked him badly at the end of the 10th with a left hook. ‘The Golden Boy’ then finished off the younger, bigger man in the 11th round of what was a masterful performance of skill and determination. Oscar looked to be making a revival in his career until he dropped a controversial decision to Shane Mosley a year after the Vargas fight. In a fight that De La Hoya seemed easily in control of, he was reluctant to dominate a Mosley who clearly couldn’t match him on the night and the judges thought that Oscar didn’t do enough. A run at Middleweight ended with his first stoppage loss via a body shot against long time Undisputed Champion Bernard Hopkins in 2004. After 18 months out of the ring he returned with a sixth round knockout over WBC 154lb ‘champion’ Ricardo Mayorga who had made Vargas’ trash talking on De La Hoya seem like he wanted to make friends. A super fight with Mayweather then took place in 2007, with Oscar putting in a valiant effort although he dropped the close split decision. His last big fight (and it turns out his last fight) came against Manny Pacquiao where De La Hoya tried (foolishly) to make 145lbs and suffered badly as a result, losing a one sided 8th round TKO.
It’s good to see that Oscar got out at the right time and thats a very rare thing you can say when it comes to boxers retiring. He’d been past his best for a while but still able to compete with the top guys. Pacquiao was the first guy to really beat him up and he did the right thing by getting out now and not seeing if he had anything left one or two more times. It’s a little sad to see him go out on his stool like that, but it’ll be a hell of a lot better then seeing him choke on his “s’s” when he’s 40 years old because he’s punch drunk. The big question that always pops up when a great retires is his legacy, and for De La Hoya it’s a controversial one. I usually leave it a few years before I go ahead and give a fighter his standing among the greats as judgment is often clouded around the time when the man is still fighting. He was one of the best fighters of the 90′s no doubt but as to where he stands among other great fighters in the same weight, I find it had to class him. His welterweight reign was very strong, but there was Trinidad nipping at his heels and it’s hard to rate him above Tito when Tito’s reign was more destructive and then he beat Oscar while they were both at their best (even though I thought Oscar won). Then there’s the fact that Mosley beat him twice, once at Welterweight, which makes his resume’ on par with guys of his own era, rather then the greats of all-time. The other option would be to rate him as a Lightweight, but his career there was so short and he was so green that it’s hard to imagine a young De La Hoya locking horns with Roberto Duran or Ike Williams.
The one thing that I think will always hurt De La Hoya’s legacy is the Trinidad fight and the second Mosley fight. There was no shame losing to Mosley the first time, or Hopkins, Mayweather or Pacquiao as Mosley was unheralded (as far as pound for pound entrants were concerned) and the other three were arguably the best pound for pound of the day that De La Hoya fought them. But he really should have beaten both Trinidad and Mosley convincingly enough that the judges couldn’t have screwed him over if you’re of the opinion that they did. The fact is, he left both of those fights to be closer then they needed to be because he didn’t have the guts to take the fight to them and risk losing. He has the guts as he showed in the Vargas fight, but using them when it matters is part of being a truly great fighter and in those two circumstances Oscar didn’t show guts. Had he dominated both of those guys and been a bit more active during his career, he’d be a shoe-in all-time great for sure. As it stands (and please don’t go on about his 10 world titles or whatever, fact is he was legitimate champion in three of those weight divisions, and in two of them he held the titles for less then a year and he never unified a division, WBO at 130 and 135 don’t count as far as I’m concerned and he definately did not prove he was the best 135lber in the game when he was at that weight class) Oscar is one of those fighters who sits below the true legends of the sport although at his best he’d be a handful for anyone. Although I see him as more of a media star then a fighter in the later part of his career, I’ve enjoyed the De La Hoya ride and I wish him all the best in retirement!
