Post by dnrcincinnati on Apr 14, 2009 19:44:48 GMT -5
ok so i dont know twenty years ago i remember seeing this guy on a weekly reader thing in school and now he is retiring he is 36 two years older than me ... i think it was smart of him becuase if you dont get out while your young your going pay for it big time physically and your quality of life as you get older will not be good the article below talks about some of this and how boxing is differnt from other sports
Thirteen years ago, as Oscar De La Hoya kicked off the publicity tour for his first fight with Julio Cesar Chavez, a man named Bobby Chacon appeared in the back of the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Once a fierce champion known as the Golden Boy, Chacon was collecting cans for deposit.
"I learned from him," De La Hoya once told me. "I learned from them all."
What he learned, this most famous incarnation of all the Los Angeles Golden Boys, was not to be like them. Let me rephrase that, not to end as they did. Even the best fighters tend to finish with some self-inflicted humiliation. They stay too long. They finish battered and broke. And vanity exacts a greater price from fighters than it does from other athletes. Yes, it was horrible to see Willie Mays stumbling in the outfield at Shea. But compare that to Muhammad Ali, whose celebrated shuffle has become a palsied jig.
Tuesday morning, Oscar De La Hoya held another press conference. As the Olympic is now a Korean church, it was held in a plaza across from the Staples Center, where his image was recently immortalized in a bronze statue. As was widely presumed, four months after his resounding defeat at the hands of Manny Pacquiao, De La Hoya announced his retirement.
I understand the resentments directed toward De La Hoya. There's an ancient grudge against the pretty boy. It is said he's not Mexican enough. That he was overrated. Worse still, that his priority was commerce, not pugilism. After all, that statue is not a monument to De La Hoya, so much as his lucrative partnership with AEG, the firm that owns the Staples Center.
And to all that I say, so what? The legacy of Oscar De La Hoya is two-fold. First, he managed to avoid the fate and temptation of all those like Bobby Chacon. This Golden Boy never stepped foot in Palookaville. Second, and most notably, he kept the American fight game alive in the absence of a compelling heavyweight.
I covered most of his big fights, beginning with the '92 Olympics. I saw him in his finest hour, that 12th round when he put down Ike Quartey to earn a decision. I saw him as a desiccated old man against Pacquiao. I recall arguing the decisions he got (against Pernell Whitaker) and those he did not (the second against Mosley, who was then getting his drugs from BALCO). And I only hope that Oscar's second retirement lasts longer than his first.
That one was short-lived, lasting from rounds nine through twelve against Felix Trinidad. Thinking he had won, De La Hoya boxed without fighting. My scorecard still had him winning, seven rounds to five. But the judges thought differently. In 45 pro fights — 39 wins against six losses — that's all that can be really held against him. Those three rounds should be the only regret in an otherwise admirable, and outrageously lucrative career.
"If I was your promoter," said Don King, "you would've won this fight."
Perhaps that's what caused him to form Golden Boy Promotions. De La Hoya's company has successfully challenged the hegemony of King and Bob Arum, his former promoter. A fighter as a promoter? It was an absurd thought just a decade ago. But now De La Hoya the promoter is charged with an even more daunting task: finding another Golden Boy.
Thirteen years ago, as Oscar De La Hoya kicked off the publicity tour for his first fight with Julio Cesar Chavez, a man named Bobby Chacon appeared in the back of the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Once a fierce champion known as the Golden Boy, Chacon was collecting cans for deposit.
"I learned from him," De La Hoya once told me. "I learned from them all."
What he learned, this most famous incarnation of all the Los Angeles Golden Boys, was not to be like them. Let me rephrase that, not to end as they did. Even the best fighters tend to finish with some self-inflicted humiliation. They stay too long. They finish battered and broke. And vanity exacts a greater price from fighters than it does from other athletes. Yes, it was horrible to see Willie Mays stumbling in the outfield at Shea. But compare that to Muhammad Ali, whose celebrated shuffle has become a palsied jig.
Tuesday morning, Oscar De La Hoya held another press conference. As the Olympic is now a Korean church, it was held in a plaza across from the Staples Center, where his image was recently immortalized in a bronze statue. As was widely presumed, four months after his resounding defeat at the hands of Manny Pacquiao, De La Hoya announced his retirement.
I understand the resentments directed toward De La Hoya. There's an ancient grudge against the pretty boy. It is said he's not Mexican enough. That he was overrated. Worse still, that his priority was commerce, not pugilism. After all, that statue is not a monument to De La Hoya, so much as his lucrative partnership with AEG, the firm that owns the Staples Center.
And to all that I say, so what? The legacy of Oscar De La Hoya is two-fold. First, he managed to avoid the fate and temptation of all those like Bobby Chacon. This Golden Boy never stepped foot in Palookaville. Second, and most notably, he kept the American fight game alive in the absence of a compelling heavyweight.
I covered most of his big fights, beginning with the '92 Olympics. I saw him in his finest hour, that 12th round when he put down Ike Quartey to earn a decision. I saw him as a desiccated old man against Pacquiao. I recall arguing the decisions he got (against Pernell Whitaker) and those he did not (the second against Mosley, who was then getting his drugs from BALCO). And I only hope that Oscar's second retirement lasts longer than his first.
That one was short-lived, lasting from rounds nine through twelve against Felix Trinidad. Thinking he had won, De La Hoya boxed without fighting. My scorecard still had him winning, seven rounds to five. But the judges thought differently. In 45 pro fights — 39 wins against six losses — that's all that can be really held against him. Those three rounds should be the only regret in an otherwise admirable, and outrageously lucrative career.
"If I was your promoter," said Don King, "you would've won this fight."
Perhaps that's what caused him to form Golden Boy Promotions. De La Hoya's company has successfully challenged the hegemony of King and Bob Arum, his former promoter. A fighter as a promoter? It was an absurd thought just a decade ago. But now De La Hoya the promoter is charged with an even more daunting task: finding another Golden Boy.
