Early in Oscar's career, he was always the biggest guy in his division. To his credit, he continued to move up in weight in order to take on better challenges; taking on on increasingly bigger men on the way. This culminated with him going all the way up to MW in order to fight the true MW champ and future HOFer/ATG Bernard Hopkins. Hopkins handed Hoya his only stoppage loss. Since then, the trend has reversed, he's now taking on increasingly smaller men. Let's look at his opponents since that fight; Ricardo Mayorga - Blown up WW Floyd Mayweather Jr. - Floyd came up from WW, and is built like a JWW Steve Forbes - Came up from JWW Manny Pacquiao - :verysad Started at 106, and is coming up from LW(really JLW as he only fought once at LW) Assuming Oscar beat Manny, he'll face another JWW in the form of Ricky Hatton. Since the Hopkins fight, it seems that Oscar is afraid of getting hurt and has resorted to trying to enhance his legacy by fighting to good to great fighters who are 2 to 4 divsions smaller than him. The tactic even backfired on him once when Mayweather, who gave up around 15 lbs. on fight night, and had his brand of gloves chosen by Oscar(Floyd described them as pillows), beat Oscar via SD. This **** has to stop. Oscar's psyche might be permantly damaged from that chopped liver with Hopkins sauce that Nard hit him with. It's time for Oscar to hang em up and stop wasting everyone's time and money.
Mayorga on fight night has been known to be anything up to 170lbs. Floyd was really 3 lbs over his normal weight.
Mayorga has never shown to really be effective above 147. You're right, Floyd was 3 lbs. over his normal weight. However, he was fighting 7 lbs. north of WW, and was outweighed by probably 10-15 lbs. on fight night.
Yes he did - badly. Losing is something that most fighters find it difficult to come to terms with. However, a points loss is always something a fighter can 'hide behind' if you like - in that somebody else decided that they had lost. They can always tell themselves that they won, the judges had ripped them off etc. In DLH's case this is often true. On the flipside, obvious exceptions are Hopkins vs Pavlik, Calzaghe vs Lacy etc which were obvious wide UD's. Even when a fighter is TKO'd, they can tell themselves it was a bull**** stoppage - Lewis vs McCall for instance, and that they could have come back and not only competed, but won the fight eventually. When put down for a ten count, especially in the manner that DLH was, it may discourage them from facing guys either their own size, big punchers or active fighters in general. DLH was KO'd by Hopkins - next was Mayorga (who is essentially a pantomime villain), then Floyd (P4P #1 but in truth a 130-140lb'er) and then Forbes, an iron-chinned non puncher. Following that is Pacquiao, who is unproven above 130 (in truth) and probably Hatton, unproven above 140. In truth, DLH shouldn't be that down on himself. A guy as big as Hopkins was at 160 ought to be stopping a welterweight - just as DLH is expecting to stop Pacquiao.
didnt damage his pyche but hes smart enough to know that he better keep picking on smaller people cause the bigger ones will beat him
in beyond the glory - bernard hopkins, i think its nazim richardson who talks about hopkins ruining fighters, im not saying this happened to oscar but its an interesting point of view
No. But that seems like it was the end of glory road for Oscar. He feels like he accepted enough risk and challenge in his career after that fight and now just wants to cash out.
Felix Strum beat the **** out of Oscar. Bernard merely landed a sweet shot. Did either of them damage Oscar's psyche? No. DLH is simply past his best and cashing in on fights that propose to make him look good and keep him viable as a boxing personage.
I agree with this. He knows loosing is bad for business ($$$$$), and he learned he doesn't fare well with guys his size or bigger, especially when he is not dedicated to the sport like he once was. In this case, his greed overcame any desires left in boxing to be great. For a while he was trying to be both and do both, be a business man and a be a great boxer. He learned he cannot achieve both without risking money, so he opted to stick with what he does best, and that is make money.
My point being that he only fought Mayweather for the money and low risk of losing badly, not for legacy. I don't believe he would have received much credit if he beat Mayweather. Either way, he got away with money and making the fight close, not loosing like he did against Sturm or Hopkins. He also won't receive lots of credit for beating Pac if he beats him. But Pac has a very good chance of beating DLH on points due to his quickness.
