Is De La Hoya overated?

Color me surprised.

Robbie Duran: 19-11

Things got really ****ing ugly after 1980. Yeah, I dont give a **** if Marcel wasn't "rated". Should've included Guts too.

 

He started losing. A lot.

 

I've never subscribed to the argument that a fighter is a "quitter" for pulling out, even though I've never done it.

If he's come, fought hard, taken a pounding, he has to worry about his career and about his health. Oscar pulled out of the Pacquiao fight later than I would have been okay with had I been training him.

The second it becomes crystal clear a fighter isn't in with a chance and is simply a punching bag, every punch they allow themselves to take afterwards is a punch too many.

 

Corners need to take more responsiblity in these instances as well.

Fighters by nature are brave, determined and competitive beasts and often times they wont quit no matter what they take. That's when the chief second should be brave enough to make that call and spare his fighter further damage.

I often think of Riddick Bowe-Andrew Golota II and the absolute pasting Riddick took. His corner would have been justified in my opinion in getting him out of there as early as round 2 because Riddick simply couldn't defend himself from any punches. Sure he fought back because he's competitive and because he's brave and eventually he did get the "W" on his record but at what cost? His health and career was essentially ruined by what transpired that night and his corner was complicit in that as far as I'm concerned.

I doubt it would have happened with Eddie Futch in the corner.

 

Eddie loved his fighters, and he wasn't operating under the laughable delusion most have that boxers are "gladiators". It's a damn sport, and a damn business.

Work hard, train hard, fight hard, but if you are getting hurt, something is going wrong.

I think this is something that is wrong with athletics today. We push kids way to hard. Have a little buddy who used to come to my gym, played QB for a local high school football team. Wanted to go to college, all that, coach rode his ass, he played his ass off, he blows his ACL! He gets surgery, gets back on the field in 4 months, he blows it again! Kid needs a cane!

It's just crazy. Oscar did it right. He didn't sustain any mean damage, he always worked hard and brought it (He even trained hard for Sturm, he just had no idea how to be bigget and fit at the same time, needed some help.)

He was a stud, he achieved a ton, he made a ton of money, and he can still speak and think. Rate anything on him you like, but what cannot be underrated is just how much Oscar De La Hoya won at BOXING.