By Keith Idec
LAS VEGAS – Oscar De La Hoya hid his disgust this week for as long as he could.
The retired boxing superstar-turned-promoter unleashed his anger toward Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor in a profane Tweet sent out Friday afternoon, just after the weigh-in for the fight his company is promoting Saturday night, Miguel Cotto versus Yoshihiro Kamegai.
De La Hoya sent out the message about a half hour before Mayweather and McGregor were scheduled to weigh-in Friday at T-Mobile Arena for their Showtime Pay-Per-View main event Saturday night.
De La Hoya’s Tweet read: F*** YOU #MayweatherVsMcGregor BOTH OF YOU ARE DISRESPECTING THE SPORT OF BOXING #CaneloGGG Sept 16th
De La Hoya has been very critical of Mayweather-McGregor since before their deal was even finalized.
He went as far as to release an open letter to fans on his Facebook page, urging them to boycott the Mayweather-McGregor fight because he considers it a complete mismatch and transparent money grab by both combatants. McGregor, a UFC superstar from Ireland, will make his boxing debut against Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs), widely viewed as the best boxer of this era, in a 12-round, 154-pound fight.
De La Hoya is particularly displeased with the timing of Mayweather-McGregor, which will occur just three weeks before his company, Golden Boy Promotions, will present the highly anticipated middleweight title showdown between champion Gennady Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) and Canelo Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs). The Golovkin-Alvarez fight will take place in the same arena as Mayweather-McGregor, but will be distributed by HBO Pay-Per-View.
HBO also will televise a doubleheader featuring Cotto-Kamegai at the same time Saturday night as at least most of Showtime Pay-Per-View’s Mayweather-McGregor show. The Cotto-Kamegai match could end, however, before the Mayweather-McGregor fight starts.
Puerto Rico’s Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) and Japan’s Kamegai (27-3-2, 24 KOs) will fight for the vacant WBO super welterweight title in the 12-round main event of a show scheduled to start at 9:45 p.m. ET/6:45 p.m. PT. The four-fight Mayweather-McGregor telecast is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.