Oscar De La Hoya - From Glory to Failure

Oscar De La Hoya became famous since his early years in boxing, his big debut as a professional boxer came along in Barcelona’s 1992 Olympic Games, where attained the gold medal, triumph that send him to fame and opened all doors to a full of successes career that turned him into one of the best boxers of the 90s.

Great abilities, clean technique, talent and a good punch are the characteristics that can describe the beginnings of Oscar’s career, who found his first main triumph before Julio César Chávez, one of the best Mexican wrestlers at the moment. The spectacular victory placed the Golden Boy confidently among the middle weights, converting him in the third boxer (of 4 total) to obtain the record of sextuple world champion in different categories; previous De La Hoya were Thomas Hearns and Héctor Camacho, and subsequent James Toney.

In September 1999, after 31 consecutive victories a big test for Oscar De La Hoya developed, having to confront Tito Trinidad, who had as well an unbeaten record. The tough wrestle in which none of the fighters gave up, prolonged until the 12th round and following the decision taken by the judges, the Mexican-American boxer suffered his first defeat. From then on, the professional live of one of the best ones ever, would start to have ups and downs.

The desire of becoming the ultimate fighter in middleweight leads the Golden Boy to seek for revenge for the beaten he got 3 years earlier (2000), by Shane Mosley, who ended up overcoming the Hispanic strikes and to pound him for the second time.

Since his last encounter with ‘Sugar’ Mosley in 2003 and until today, the results of his fights have finished alternately on glories and failures. The conquers were obtained facing Felix Sturm, Ricardo Mayorga and Steve Forges; while the defeats were against Bernard Hopkins to whom he lost the chance to win the titles to be King of the Middleweight in 2004; then after Floyd Mayweather Jr and in his last clash on December 6th, 2008 against the Filipino Manny Pacquiao, WBC Lightweight Champion, whom due to his lower height and weight, was seen as the possible loser.

Pacquiao controlled the combat most of the time with excellent moves and powerful hits, punishing stoutly his rival, who doesn’t show a promising future.

In the last 4 years the Golden Boy has announced twice his retirement from the boxing world. The first time was subsequently to the thrashing he got from “The Executer” Hopkins and frustration kept him out for almost 2 whole years; the second time was in 2007, but on that occasion the break didn’t last long time for De La Hoya, staying off the ring just a year

Currently the rumors say that the 35 years old boxer will withdraw, at least the professional fights, especially after accepting that his physical condition is not as good as it used to, which was pretty obvious during the competition with Manny ‘Goliath’ Pacquiao. For the moment all left is to wait for the public announcement, which is what everybody is expecting from this boxer titan of our times.