By Ronnie Nathanielsz

Widely respected, award-winning boxing writer Thomas Hauser who is also a lawyer, is pressing Oscar De La Hoya to sign a waiver so that the Nevada State Athletic Commission can release the records of drug tests conducted on “The Golden Boy” when he was fighting. 

Hauser repeated his challenge to De La Hoya which came out in a lengthy, detailed article earlier in January at the height of the controversy over unsubstantiated allegations that pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao was on performance enhancing drugs.

Hauser told us “To repeat; this is a golden opportunity for Oscar De La Hoya to show the world how a righteous PED-free fighter acts and remove any hint of suspicion that he himself might not have clean hands” and posed the  question “Why doesn’t Oscar simply sign the waiver.”

He said should De La Hoya sign the waiver then “maybe  Keith Kizer  (the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission) will learn something.”

Hauser even took issue with us over our story in which we quoted Kizer as saying he didn’t know what the writer was talking about in his article and said “If Keith Kizer doesn’t know what I’m talking about, wouldn’t you expect him (as executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission) to pick up the telephone and call me to find out?”  In fact Hauser said we should have called him first to find out what he was pointing out before getting a reaction from Kizer for which we apologized to the esteemed journalist.  

Hauser stressed we need to keep in mind that the waiver “encompasses, among other things, people speaking freely about what they know. That goes beyond producing the limiter number of Nevada State Athletic Commission records that the public has access to.”

Hauser also noted that De La Hoya, as mentioned in his article, had tested positive for lidocaine and creatine but was curious to find out from Golden Boy Promotions whether De La Hoya ever tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.” He  said this is an issue that “should be resolved in fairness to everyone involved, as well as the Filipino people and boxing fans everywhere”