DLH and Mayorga...

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From Wikipedia: De La Hoya

Oscar de la Hoya (born February 4, 1973 in Montebello, CA) — nicknamed the Golden Boy — is a Mexican-American boxer who won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympic Games and is considered one of boxing's all time greats. Oscar de la Hoya became Ring Magazine's "fighter of the year" in 1995 and between 1997 and 1999 was regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world by Ring Magazine and KO Magazine. He is considered to be the biggest non-heavyweight attraction ever and the only fighter in the history of boxing to win nine world championships in a record six weight classes .

During his amateur career, De la Hoya's record was 223-5 with 163 knockouts. He was the United States' top Olympic boxing hope when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died at age 35. On her death bed, he promised her that he would win an Olympic gold medal.

Boxing Career
De la Hoya was raised as the son of Mexican immigrants in impoverished circumstances in East Los Angeles. He began boxing at the age of eight.

On November 23, 1992, De la Hoya made his pro debut. He went on to win titles in 6 different weight divisions and beat former and current world champions Troy Dorsey (KO 1), Jimmy Bredahl, (KO 10), Jorge Paez, (KO 2), Genaro Hernandez (TKO 6), John John Molina (W 12), Rafael Ruelas (TKO 2), Julio Cesar Chavez (TKO 4, KO 8), Miguel Angel Gonzalez (W 12), Jesse James Leija (KO 2), Pernell Whitaker (W 12), Hector "Macho" Camacho (W 12), Ike Quartey (W 12), Arturo Gatti (KO 5), Francisco Javier Castillejo (W 12), and Fernando Vargas (KO 11). His only losses include a controversial majority decision loss to Félix Trinidad and two close decision losses to Shane Mosley. Oscar has been stopped only once in his entire career by the much larger Bernard Hopkins (KO 9).

On September 14, 2002, Oscar fought his nemesis "Ferocious" Fernando Vargas. After fiercely competitive early rounds, Oscar seized control of the latter half of the fight. In round 11, Oscar De la Hoya dropped Fernando Vargas with a left hook. Fernando Vargas got up at the count of nine, but De la Hoya finished him with a barrage of punches forcing the referee to stop the fight at 1:48 of round 11(TKO 11). It was later revealed that Fernando Vargas had tested positive for steroids in his post-fight drug test.

On May 3, 2003, as part of the Cinco de Mayo festivities, he retained his WBC and WBA world junior middleweight championships, when the corner of his rival, former world champion Yori Boy Campas threw in the towel, indicating that they were giving up, and officially gave De la Hoya a seventh round knockout win. On September 13, he and former rival Mosley met once again, in Las Vegas, and Mosley once again took away De la Hoya's world title belts, with a 12 round unanimous decision over The Golden Boy. This decision was met with a great deal of controversy, as De la Hoya was seen by many as the better fighter that night.

On February 9, 2004, the FBI announced it would investigate whether the rematch with Mosley had been fixed, placing Arum's promoting company, Top Rank, in the middle of a scandal that allegedly involved bribing the judges so they would score the fight for Mosley. No evidence of fixing was discovered.

De la Hoya next challenged Felix Sturm for the WBO world middleweight title on June 5, 2004. He won that fight by a disputed unanimous decision to become the first boxer in history to win world titles in 6 different weight divisions. After that, he hoped to unify that title with the three other world middleweight championships, held by Bernard Hopkins, on September 18.

He lost to Hopkins by a ninth round knockout. A left hand to the body sent him to the canvas, knocking De la Hoya out for the first time in his career. Hopkins would later join De la Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions, a boxing promotion firm.

Though De la Hoya is currently his own manager, he is trained by former Welterweight contender, Floyd Mayweather Sr.

De la Hoya is currently scheduled to face WBC world junior middleweight Ricardo Mayorga on May 6, 2006 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

De la Hoya said that this might be his last year of boxing and has revealed that he wants to face Floyd Mayweather Jr. as his last opponent.

De la Hoya's record stands at 37 wins and 4 defeats, with 29 wins by knockout.

Amateur Highlights
Amateur Record: 223-5 with 163 knockouts

1990 Gold Medalist U.S. Olympic Cup
1990 Gold Medalist Goodwill Games
1990 Gold U.S. National Championships
1991 Gold Medalist USA vs. Olympic Festival
1992 Gold Medalist USA vs. Boxing National Championships
1992 Gold Medalist USA vs. Bulgaria
1992 Gold Medalist World Challenge
1992 Gold Olympic Medalist Barcelona

Life Outside the Ring

Cover to Oscar de la Hoya's self titled CD from EMI International. Released October 10th, 2000.De la Hoya is one of the favorite boxers of American cable channel HBO, where he formerly produced a popular Spanish language boxing show called Boxeo de Oro. De la Hoya's interests outside the ring include architecture, acting, fashion designing, and singing. He designed his own house in Big Bear Lake, California, has has at least two clothing line (BUM, or Boxing UniforMs, and a signature clothing line through Mervyn's department stores) and released a Grammy nominated CD, entitled "Oscar de la Hoya." Released through EMI International on October 10th, 2000, the self titled CD is a Latin Pop album with 13 tracks in both English and Spanish.

He married Puerto Rican singing superstar Millie Corretjer on October 5, 2001 and lives in Los Angeles and Puerto Rico. Their first child, Oscar Gabriel, was born on December 29, 2005 in Puerto Rico. De la Hoya has 3 other children: Jacob (b. February 18, 1998) by a woman whose identity is unknown; Devon (b. November 30, 1998) by former exotic dancer Angelique Desbrow; and Atiana Cecilia (b. March 29, 1999) by actress Shanna Moakler.

In April 2005, De la Hoya and a Southern California real estate developer, Highridge Partners, formed a real estate investment partnership, named Golden Boy Partners, to invest in Latino neighborhoods.

In September 2005, De la Hoya's wallet was stolen by a pickpocket. The wallet contained a $1 food stamp coupon, a reminder of his poverty-stricken childhood in east Los Angeles.

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From Wikipedia: Mayorga

Ricardo Mayorga (born October 3, 1973) is a boxer from Nicaragua who was the former WBA/WBC Welterweight champion, and current WBC Jr. Middleweight champion of the world.

Mayorga, who enjoys lighting up a cigar every time he wins a fight and who is a confessed smoker of two packs of cigarettes a day (which is bad for a fighter's conditioning) when he is not doing his boxing training, is also the first Costa Rican to win a world boxing title, because, apart from being Nicaraguan, he also became a Costa Rican when he obtained Costa Rican citizenship in the 1990s.

Mayorga lost his first pro bout, being beaten by a tko in six in his first professional bout by Humberto Aranda in 1993.

Sad but otherwise undaunted by defeat, he came back in 1994 to win three fights, all by knockout, including the third round knockout win over Jose Morales, which was his first career win.

His first fight in 1995 was also his first fight in Nicaragua, and it was fought for the Nicaraguan Welterweight title. Mayorga won the title when he knocked out Miguel Pérez in six rounds. After two more knockout wins, he defended it in a rematch with Perez, and the second time, he defeated Perez by a knockout in three.

He then took off three years from boxing, and when he returned, in 1998, he beat German Espinales by a knockout in four, but in his next bout, he lost a ten round decision to former Edwin Rosario rival Roger Flores. After the Flores bout, he fought Henry Castillo and suffered his second loss in a row, also by decision in ten.

In his next fight, in 1999, he beat Porfirio Miranda by a knockout in one round. After one more win, he gained revenge against Castillo, defeating him by a knockout in seven, and then he met Jose Cordova for the Central American Welterweight title. He added that belt by beating Cordova by a decision in twelve.

After one more win, Mayorga went to Puerto Rico to meet Cuba's fringe contender Dyobelis Hurtado, a boxer who had faced Pernell Whitaker and Kostya Tszyu in world title tries, among others. Mayorga and Hurtado came up with a technical draw in two rounds, and in his next fight, Mayorga lifted the WBA's Latin American Jr. Middleweight belt with a two round knockout of Marcos Avendano. A rematch with Espinales for the Fecarbox Welterweight title, brought Mayorga exactly the same result as their first encounter: A four round knockout win, and another minor title belt.

He won seven more fights in a row, including 2 defenses each of his WBA Latin American and Fecarbox belts, until, on July 28 of 2001, he challenged the WBA's world Welterweight champion Andrew Six Heads Lewis at the Los Angeles Roy Jones Jr.-Julio Gonzalez undercard. The fight was declared a no contest after two rounds because both fighters had cuts opened by a headbutt and they were unable to continue. However, they had a rematch on March 3 of 2002 and Mayorga made history, becoming the first Costa Rican world champion ever, and the fifth Nicaraguan to win a title, by knocking Lewis out in five rounds.

Despite winning the title and achieving those accomplishments, Mayorga was still not considered to be the real champion in the division by most experts: Vernon Forrest, who had taken the WBC's world Welterweight championship from Shane Mosley and defeated Mosley again in a rematch, was considered by many to be one of the best fighters, regardless of fighting division, around the world.

Mayorga and Forrest quickly signed up for an unification bout, and on January 25, and in front of an HBO Boxing audience, Mayorga upset most boxing critics and experts by dropping Forrest in round one, and once again in round three, winning the fight by a knockout in the third, and becoming the WBA and WBC's unified world champion.

On July 12, also in front of an HBO boxing audience, Mayorga and Forrest had a rematch, and this time Mayorga retained the title by a 12 round majority decision.

A woman in Managua accused Mayorga, on July 26, of hitting her after she allegedly tried to collect a debt of 7,500 dollars on Friday, July 18. Mayorga says he wasn't in Managua that day; he said he was in El Sauce.

Mayorga announced he would visit Iraq to do a boxing exhibition tour in front of United States military personnel. That visit, however, has yet to happen.

Mayorga was featured for the first time on the cover of Ring Magazine on the December 2003 issue, released in October. The cover read The craziest man in the sport: Mayorga lights up boxing.

On December 13, 2003, Mayorga lost his world titles, to Leon Spinks' son, Cory by a majority decision in Atlantic City. However, this win by Spinks was a very controversial decision, most of the public at ring side firmly felt that Mayorga should have won that fight. Reliable sources state that Spinks never really presented a fight, back pedaling, dancing, ducking and dodging and exercising zero aggressiveness from round 1 to 12. Also, Mayorga was facing another foe in the ring by a special referee named Tony Orlando. Orlando awarded Mayorga many point deductions that were in the eyes of many, plainly unjust. Had Orlando not present any point deductions Mayorga would have retained his crowns.

Mayorga next would have fought for the WBA's version of the world Welterweight title, on April 17 of 2004 at the Madison Square Garden in New York, New York, against the Puerto Rican champion, Jose Rivera. However, he showed up with six pounds over the Welterweight division, prompting for an unexpected debut at the Jr. Middleweight division instead of a world Welterweight title fight. He beat Eric Mitchell by a decision in twelve rounds at his Jr. Middleweight debut.

On June 10, 2004, Mayorga was once again charged by the police, this time regarding an attack and threat that Mayorga did against a young man in Managua. Mayorga denied any involvement in a violent incident.

On September 2, he was declared a fugitive by the Nicaragua police, stemming from a woman's accusation of Mayorga raping her. Although not necessarily a real fugitive, as Mayorga was in a training camp for an upcoming fight on October 2 with Félix Trinidad, Mayorga was arrested on September 3, putting his fight with Trinidad in serious jeopardy. However, soon after, he was arrested at Managua International Airport, and his lawyer obtained permission for him to leave the country because he was leaving the country for a job that he had been contracted to do. Mayorga resumed his training once he arrived to the United States, having to face the criminal charges after his fight with Trinidad.

Mayorga dropped Trinidad in round three of their confrontation on the above mentioned date, but he was dropped himself three times in round eight, the only three times Mayorga had ever been knocked down in his pro career,leading to a knockout loss (see:Trinidad versus Mayorga).

On October 5, 2004, three days after his fight with Trinidad, Mayorga announced his retirement from boxing, but he returned to boxing, and, on August 13, 2005, Mayorga became a two division world champion by gaining the vacant WBC world Super Welterweight title with a twelve round unanimous decision over Michele Piccirillo of Italy, in Chicago.

Ricardo Mayorga is set to face Oscar de la Hoya in May of 2006 in a very anticipated bout that exploits fireworks in anticipation. Many boxing critics assure and expect that Mayorga does not stand a chance against the finesse of the Golden Boy, even when De La Hoya has been very inactive in the ring, has a newborn, and has been more of a promoter lately. However, due to the high personal disregard Mayorga has always had against De La Hoya that may the ultimate motivating factor that could offer a valid credibility and reborn hunger Mayorga once had, like in the Forrest days.

Mayorga's record: 28 wins, 5 losses and, 1 draw and 1 no contest, with 23 wins coming by knockout.