By Keith Idec
So much for The Ring magazine’s preferential treatment of Oscar De La Hoya.
“The Golden Boy” was left off a list of top Olympians who became successful professional fighters that Lee Groves, a contributing writer for The Ring, posted on the magazine’s web site. De La Hoya owns the sports/entertainment publishing company that bought the self-proclaimed, 90-year-old “Bible of Boxing” in September 2007.
The 39-year-old De La Hoya, a six-division champion who earned more than $300 million during an illustrious 16-year career, took to Twitter on Wednesday to note his ominous omission from the list.
“I was reading a story on #RINGTV.com on the ‘top 10 boxers with combined Olympic and pro success,’ ” De La Hoya tweeted. “I didn’t even make the list?!?!?!”
The 1992 Olympic gold medalist later tweeted, “The funny thing is …… I own it!?”
The list, which wasn’t restricted to American Olympians, was topped by Muhammad Ali. “The Greatest” was followed by Roy Jones Jr. at No. 2, Ray Leonard at No. 3, Pernell Whitaker at No. 4, Wladimir Klitschko at No. 5, Floyd Mayweather Jr. at No. 6, Lennox Lewis at No. 7, George Foreman at No. 8, Joe Frazier at No. 9 and Evander Holyfield at No. 10.
Ali (1960), Leonard (1976), Whitaker (1984), Klitschko (1996), Lewis (1988), Foreman (1968) and Frazier (1964) all won gold medals. Jones, of course, was infamously robbed of a light middleweight gold medal in 1988, when he “lost” in the final to South Korea’s Park Si Hun and settled for a silver medal in Seoul. Holyfield (1984) and Mayweather (1996) were bronze medalists.
De La Hoya was part of Groves’ honorable mention list, which also included Tim Austin, Nino Benvenuti, Michael Carbajal, Joel Casamayor, Virgil Hill, Vassiliy Jirov, Fidel LaBarba, Pascual Perez and Andre Ward.
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com.