Taking this opportunity to salute Oscar Del La Hoya on his willingness to fight the best fighters in the world, even at his age. I'm not insinuating Forbes fits into this category, but it's been well documented that this was to be considered a tune up for a return match against the greatest boxer in the world today, Floyd Mayweather Jr. Oscar truely believes he can defeat Mayweather, even if 90% of posters on ESB Forums disagree with his assessment on how the return bout would play out. I will be supporting Oscar. I think when boxing fans spend a lot of their time criticising fighters who don't fight the best; Joe Calzaghe, Chris Eubank, Bernard Hopkins, etc, it only makes sense to salute those who do; Oscar De La Hoya. I don't blame anybody but the judges for the decisions given in the Sturm and Whitaker fights.
What are your thoughts of him not fighting Winky and Vernon? I don't think any fighter gets to every challenge, but these were two high profile (as far as boxing fans are concerned) fights that he has been accused of ducking. Personaly Im not a huge Oscar fan. But he has fought a who's who of great fighters and missing these two isn't a big deal in my opinion compared with the rest of his career. But I was arguing this on another board just this past week ans the other poster kept bringing it up. vSo, what do you guys think?
I think that's more foolish talk from boxing fans who don't really know enough to comment about it. It's the same with the rumours surrounding Sugar Ray Leonard ducking Pryor to move up to Middleweight to fight Marvin Hagler. It just doesn't make any sense. De La Hoya may not have fought Winky Wright and Vernon forrest, but he took on Trinidad when Trinidad was knocking everybody out. He fought Mosley twice even when Shane was still at the height of his powers. He moved up weight to take on one of the most dominant Middleweight champions since Marvin Hagler and Carlos Monzon. If Oscar didn't fight Winky and Vernon for a reason, it wasn't because of fear.
He wasn't scared of Winky, but he knew there was a good chance that he would lose to him. The risk/reward factor played heavily as to why the two didn't fight at 154. It's hard to criticise Hoya for his resume consdiering how many good fighters he's taken on. However, make no mistake about it, Hoya definately ducked Winky when they were both at 154.
I would have favoured Winky Wright. I cannot see Oscar De La Hoya hurting Winky with single shots, or landing enough combinations to break him down systematically. Winky would most likely block and parry most of De La Hoya's helpless flurries, and then tag him with counters to a UD 12 round decision. It'd be Hopkins all over again, just not ending in a stoppage.
the term "ducked" insinuates that one fighter was afraid to fight the other. I don't feel that is the case. If Hoya didn't want to fight Winky, it was because Winky wasn't that big of a name at the time, whereas after Hopkins destroyed Trinidad, Bernard was a big name. Still, it makes no sense to me why Oscar would "duck" Winky and then go after Bernard, who had just destroyed the same man who defeated Oscar. Credit to Oscar for fighting Bernard.
Ducking is when you purposely avoid a worthy challenge. Oscar was the WBA/WBC champ and Winky was the IBF champ. That fight would've produced the first ever undisputed champ in that division. Winky lobbied hard for the fight, but Oscar and Arum insited that nobody wanted to see the fight. Well, if that's the case, then why the hell did Oscar fight Yuri Boy Campas? Who the hell wanted to see that garbage fight? And that is what happened, Oscar turned down a fight with the IBF champ in order to fight Yuri Boy Campas. That's a clear cut case of ducking.
When you fight the best its really a no lose situation, hey if you lose, at least you fought the best
Ross Purrity fought a lot high profile fights at his advanced age and I dont see a thread dedicated to him. :yep
