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Oscar De La Hoya says he's ready to silence the doubters by beating Manny Pacquiao.
The 'Golden Boy' will end his glittering ring career by fighting the Filipino icon and current pound-for-pound king at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on December 6.
It's a fight that some see as a money-making gimmick, with Pacquiao currently plying his trade at lightweight - around a stone lighter than Oscar.
But despite that De La Hoya says recent comments from some boxing experts got under his skin and made him accept the challenge to silence the Pacman.
Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach - who prepared Oscar for his defeat by Floyd Mayweather Jr in 2007 - for one said his man would "annihilate" De La Hoya if they did get in the ring together.
Oscar said: "To me, this is a challenge. To me, when a certain person in the boxing industry who is an expert (Larry Merchant of HBO) mentioned the possibility last year of fighting Manny Pacquiao, it stuck to my head and it kept on lingering in my head and I kept on thinking about it over the months.
"And to this day I say to myself, can I really fight Manny Pacquiao and beat the pound-for-pound champion of the world?
"Yes, I'm older. Yes, I'm bigger. And yes, he's younger and he's the pound-for-pound champion. But when people starting saying, oh, well, Manny can beat you, Manny can knock you out, and especially when Freddie Roach started saying, 'Oscar can't pull the trigger or Manny Pacquiao, the fighter I trained, can beat you', it started to become a challenge to me.
"And now it is very personal, especially when Manny Pacquiao beat all the legendary Mexican fighters.
"To me, it's a challenge, and especially because people are talking. People are talking that Manny Pacquiao can beat me. Well, we'll see on December 6."
The 'Golden Boy' will end his glittering ring career by fighting the Filipino icon and current pound-for-pound king at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on December 6.
It's a fight that some see as a money-making gimmick, with Pacquiao currently plying his trade at lightweight - around a stone lighter than Oscar.
But despite that De La Hoya says recent comments from some boxing experts got under his skin and made him accept the challenge to silence the Pacman.
Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach - who prepared Oscar for his defeat by Floyd Mayweather Jr in 2007 - for one said his man would "annihilate" De La Hoya if they did get in the ring together.
Oscar said: "To me, this is a challenge. To me, when a certain person in the boxing industry who is an expert (Larry Merchant of HBO) mentioned the possibility last year of fighting Manny Pacquiao, it stuck to my head and it kept on lingering in my head and I kept on thinking about it over the months.
"And to this day I say to myself, can I really fight Manny Pacquiao and beat the pound-for-pound champion of the world?
"Yes, I'm older. Yes, I'm bigger. And yes, he's younger and he's the pound-for-pound champion. But when people starting saying, oh, well, Manny can beat you, Manny can knock you out, and especially when Freddie Roach started saying, 'Oscar can't pull the trigger or Manny Pacquiao, the fighter I trained, can beat you', it started to become a challenge to me.
"And now it is very personal, especially when Manny Pacquiao beat all the legendary Mexican fighters.
"To me, it's a challenge, and especially because people are talking. People are talking that Manny Pacquiao can beat me. Well, we'll see on December 6."
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