Your Thoughts on Oscar De La Hoya?

Having just read Donald McRae's brilliant biography, "A man's world", on the wonderful (wonderful fighter and even more wonderful man) Emile Griffiths, in particular Emile's fondness of attractive, lithe, Latino men, I suspect he'd have smashed ODLH in the ring given half a chance.

Apologies......

 

never really cared for him but 1 thing i do respect is putting his country first. Hes american first.

 

Yeh a great book Greg,i shed a tear when i read the part how as an old man he was beaten up by a load of thugs

 

It really is Noel. Great fighter, nice man and it is sad the many injustices he had to suffer.

 

The background sound is just messed up.

 

One of the best Ive seen

 

The main thing that I remember De La Hoya for is that despite being a huge box office draw, he consistently challenged himself and took risks that he didn’t need to take,and was very active, even when he lost.
There aren’t many boxers who would do the same in his position.
For example, in 1997 he defended his light welterweight belt against unbeaten Miguel Angel Gonzalez, moved up to welterweight and took the belt from Pernell Whitaker, then defended it three times (once against Camacho)….all in one year. Who does that these days?
Another example…we’re about to see Crawford vs Spence….how long did that take to make? As a contrast, De La Hoya’s 1999 consisted of fights against Ike Quartey, Oba Carr and Felix Trinidad.
I thought he was at his best at lightweight, and 1995 was a great one for him..wins over John John Molina, Rafael Ruelas, Genaro Hernandez and Jesse James Leija. Again…who would fight those guys in one year?
I thought he could have beaten Mayweather if he’d stuck with his jab, and I loved the Vargas fight.
De La Hoya v Mosley 1 is one of my favorite fights of all time, great technical skill shown by both fighters that night.
So overall..did he win all the big fights? No, but at least he took the big fights, and regularly.

 

He needs to face up to all the sexual depravity, otherwise it will constantly follow him around forever.

 

After reading your post I believe I may be guilty of underrating him also. Not that I had him rated low or anything but I certainly didn't give him his due for what he accomplished in the 90's.

Nice thought provoking post.

 

Honestly, I think he's a hypocrite. As members of the fraternity of grown ass men, we were meant to love our mothers. Basically she carried you for 9 months and put in the care and love to raise you. There's no need to throw them under a bus just to catch some respect by pop culture people. What Oscar said was mean spirited and stuff. Usually I'm politically correct but in this instance, I think she would be turning in her grave. Oscar, we need to forgive our mom's, we only have one parents, and you can't choose who your family is. Love em or hate em, at the end of the day PEACE IT OUT!!! It's one thing if she abused him and he stuck to that narrative. But with Oscar it's always another thing, she was his inspiration at the Olympics. The fact that he says he's lucky to be alive, well this is life, noone makes it out alive. And don't start sounding like a dosser like Tyson fury, who is self righteous. Oscar you were a great fighter, good image- but outside of the ring he really did weird things. We've all been through a lot, 85% of your life you can talk about; the other 15% nobody would believe. Some more, some less. Dude did a good job at his speech at cancer care (where Mike Tyson gave him props for that) but please never hurt your mamma. Sorry, don't throw her under the bus before you cry for her.

 

Speaking of Emile Griffith, he said something poignant: "when I kill a man, people love me. When I love a man, people hate me." Such a hard truth for a gay boxer

 

31-0, beat Chavez twice, beat Camacho and Gatti, I'd consider that a bit more than just entertaining, but Hearns was still fairly active during his time so no he didn't fight everyone

he should start an onlyfans with exclusive fishnet content

 

Hearns? DLH would’ve had to have moved up to light heavy or cruiserweight to do that.

 

I don't think he performed well in big fights

 

Hearns and DLH both fought at welterweight, light middleweight, and middleweight, why does it always have to be about a fighter going up in weight