15 years later: Who really won Dela Hoya V Trinidad fight?

Felix Trinidad MD12 Oscar De La Hoya

OSCAR: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
TITO: 10,11,12

It felt like a robbery to me, it felt like Oscar won it pretty big and that's the way I see it when I actually put pen to paper over it. To be honest, I can't really see how anyone comes up with this fight for Trinidad. The above scorecard doesn't make me comfortable, I hate scoring round after round for one guy, but that's the way I saw it, and if I was to watch it again with "benefit of the doubt" type eyes I think I could only hack up 4 and 9 for Tito. I admit these could be scored either way. That gives me a card of 7-5, at best for Trinidad and I can't see how I could see it any other way.

I thought Oscar's punching was consistently brilliant when he went on the attack, and I think the variety of leads was great to see. He flushes a one-two off a lead left uppercut at one point, leads with hooks to the body, jabs, right hands, you name, every punch really. He doesn't do a lot of punching, but he certainly lands mare than Trinidad by a ways up until he quits fighting. He outlanded him in round 9, which I know is a big one on Tito fan's cards. I think you could give 9 to Tito, but Oscar starts very strong with varied attacks, goes on his bike, but finishes up pretty strong in the last ten seconds with flurries and combos. You can't ignore them as though it were some cheap parlour trick, they are scoring punches, and for me they shadow the round for De La Hoya.

Round 4 is the crucial round to me, as Oscar gets hit hard here twice just standing around and waiting. After that, he never really stops moving, which dominates the flavour of the fight. It works for him though, and Trinidad often looks set in stone, missing punches by literally a foot on a couple of occasions late on. It's such a high energy style though, and I think that gets underplayed a bit. Look how many steps Oscar has to take to keep ahead of Tito in these middle rounds, a ratio of four to one wouldn't surprise me. It's basically an aerobic workout in the middle of a boxing match. There wasn't any decision by Oscar to move those last three rounds, he just didn't have the energy to fight. The best camp he'd ever had couldn't supply him with that kind of energy against a high pressure style. He doesn't get beaten up though, apart from in the twelfth, because Trinidad is knackered also. In fact...they start to look a little like Cotto-Margarito I

I'm honestly not denigrating them though, in spite of Oscars sometimes stiff-shined galloping style and Trinidad's muted, thumping pursuit, this is just about Oscar's best display. I thought he won handily and deserved the decision. I think Trinidad got exposed a bit here, finally, but showed good discipline and another facet to his game. He perhaps would have done better had he boxed with a bit less discipline, sometimes though?

 

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