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By Ron Borges
LAS VEGAS - The issue all along, Oscar De La Hoya understood, was not what he would do with Ricardo Mayorga on May 6 but rather what he'd do on May 7, after he was finished with him. That remains the question today, although anyone who has watched De La Hoya for long assumes he knows the answer to that just as he knew the answer all along to Mayorga's angry riddle.
It took barely a minute for De La Hoya to make clear to Mayorga that his foul-mouthed pre-fight insults and vows of a violent end to their impending confrontation had fallen on deaf ears. Refusing to back up or use his speed and smooth footwork to slip away when Mayorga charged from his corner of the MGM Grand Garden Arena to open the first round of their WBC junior middleweight title fight, De La Hoya elected instead to hold his ground, ducking and slipping one wild bomb after another while calmly waiting, like the mongoose, for the mistake he knew was coming.
When Mayorga made it, De La Hoya struck, rapping him with a hard right hand and seconds later a counter left hook that beat Mayorga's own right hand to its target and sent him sprawling to the floor. In barely a minute boxing's Golden Boy had delivered the message he intended.
"I was hitting him with my right hand and he felt the power,'' De La Hoya said. "My trainer and my brother told me to stay on my toes and use my jab. I did later. But no matter what, I was going to stand up to him and let him know right away I was here to fight. I had to show the bully I wasn't going to back down. He fought recklessly, but I stood my ground. He saw I wouldn't back down.''
Mayorga scrambled off the floor but De La Hoya had made his point harshly. The former six-time world champion might be coming off a self-imposed 20-month layoff but he was still what he had always been. He was a fighter first and he was there to make an impression on, and leave depression in, the mind and the face of Ricardo Mayorga.
De La Hoya did that with a stiff left jab and a straight right hand that repeatedly slammed between Mayorga's open defenses, knocking him off balance. He banged his body with both hands, wearing away the champion's resolve and his aggression. And, as he had done all his career, he blasted Mayorga with powerful left hooks that round after round snapped his head back and tore his fragile psych apart. Although the champion kept coming,it was with a resolve that had no plan behind it.
Unlike De La Hoya, who seems to have planned every step of his career from the day he won an Olympic gold medal in 1992 to this comeback fight, Mayorga had no idea how to accomplish his goal. All he knew was to keep throwing savage haymakers in the blind hope one of them might land.
In the third round one did, a vicious uppercut from an odd angle that snapped De La Hoya's head back. It did not, however, make him retreat. Instead, he maintained his single-minded purpose, continuing his attack on the eroding Mayorga until early in the sixth round he nailed him again with the same right-left combination. The punches staggered Mayorga, forcing him to retreat until he was trapped near the ropes. As Mayorga retreated, De La Hoya nailed him with the same combination a second time and the champion slumped to one knee to escape the assault, his mind swimming now in a turbulent sea.
As referee Jay Nady counted, Mayorga eyed De La Hoya nervously from the floor, staring at a fighter he now knew he could neither beat nor understand. He got up because that is what fighters do but all was lost and he knew it.
So did De La Hoya and unlike the first round, he wasted no time on caution. This time one of boxing's great finishers attacked with both hands, a sea of leather slamming against the weakening bulkhead of Mayorga's mind until Nady stepped in after at least a dozen unanswered punches and stopped the fight at 1:25 of Round 6.
When it was over, a meek Mayorga had little to say. After he left the ring in silence, his head down, his publicist claimed he said in his locker room, "Oscar punches very hard. I'm not hurt, I'm heartbroken.''
No longer willing to face De La Hoya or the public, the post-fight press conference was absent Mayorga's blustery noise and blue language, replaced instead by a vacant chair and a smiling De La Hoya in a $1,000 suit and a pink tie. Again, if he wants it, a fistic future looms for the 33-year-old De La Hoya, who had last been seen on his knees pounding the canvas after a body shot from Bernard Hopkins stopped him cold. He had wrestled with that image of himself pinned to the floor for many months and could not live with it. That is why he came back. But what will make him stay?
"The day after the Hopkins fight I said, 'That's it! It's over," De La Hoya recalled, "but I couldn't live with myself the way that ended. An athlete - a (Michael) Jordan, Tiger (Woods) - doesn't want to go out like that. I can picture myself on the canvas with Hopkins almost every day. I want to erase that memory.
"I told my wife I needed this. I told her, 'If I don't do this you'll see me miserable. After a few years you'll see me telling you you didn't let me fight. It might even ruin our relationship.' She understood. I'm a competitive person. What I want to do is bigger than boxing. I'm an example for a lot of people. I don't want people to think of Oscar on the canvas in his last fight. I want to retire with my hand in the air. I want to be remembered as a guy who went down and got back up and won. I want people to see me as the victor.''
He accomplished that, coming back from the only knockout defeat of his life to beat another world champion with stunning ease. But it is never enough. Already they are calling for him to pursue one more moment of glory, face one last grand challenge before he steps outside the ropes for good.
In the final days before he faced down Mayorga and in the hours immediately after, De La Hoya said he wasn't sure what he would do next. He understood that the world and those who pay him millions want him to square off with young Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who is widely perceived to be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, on Sept. 16. He has talked often about retiring with a fight on that day and if it were against Mayweather he knows it would shatter all his previous pay-per-view records. It would be the classic confrontation of Aging Lion and Young Gun and, if he wins, it would eliminate any thought of other opponents.
De La Hoya insists he understands both the long, sad history of great champions who stayed too long and that there is a great risk in fighting again after so spectacular a victory. He admitted even after the decision was made to return that he'd been careful who he selected as his opponent.
He knew he could not take a tuneup fight, as he did when he moved up to middleweight before the Hopkins fight to face a little known German for the WBO championship named Felix Sturm. He was heavy, slow and disinterested that night, being awarded a decision many felt he didn't deserve. Such opponents no longer inspire him and that is what makes them dangerous.
He was sharper for Hopkins but now admits "I didn't belong there,'' meaning at 160 pounds. De La Hoya began his career at 130 on his way to winning world titles in six different weight classes but like most such fighters, the fearsome punching power he had at 130, 135 and even 140 did not follow him against bigger men and so he became a boxer who found ways to win with hand speed, guile and that left hook but seldom by knockout. More telling, after beginning his career with 31 straight victories he was 6-4 in his last 10 outings against bigger boxers prior to defeating Mayorga.
Back in 1992, a smiling De La Hoya sat in a sunny restaurant in Badalona, Spain on the day he won Olympic gold and promised he'd retire at 30 to become an architect. He is well past that boyish dream now but he is the architect of a remarkable transformation from fighter to matinee idol to businessman. He now heads a multi-headed corporation with not only an interest in boxing promotion but also real estate development, Spanish newspapers and other publishing, ownership of two high-rise office buildings in Los Angeles and Manhattan, a bank geared toward servicing the Hispanic community in southern California and several charitable foundations that provide free mammograms to low-income women, recreation and scholarship opportunities to underprivileged kids and soon a charter high school in East L.A. that is the first to be built in that community in over 20 years.
Along the way he has attracted people to boxing who never watched before. His 17 pay-per-view fights have grossed over $450,000,000, he has sold out arenas around the country and he has brought into the sport as sponsors companies like Coca-Cola and Southwest Airlines, who normally want nothing to do with it.
"I've broken barriers,'' De La Hoya said. "I've attracted people who don't want nothing to do with boxing. We got Coca-Cola, Southwest Airlines, Bacardi, Remy Martin all to become sponsors in boxing because they wanted to be associated with me. If they do they have to be associated with boxing.
"I've mentioned Sept. 16 as the ideal date to retire. I've fought on that date, Mexican Independence Day, but nothing is set in stone. I'm a smart guy. I know 95 per cent of fighters stay too long. When Ali fought (Leon) Spinks did he think he had a chance to win? In his mind he thought he'd beat the guy. That's the danger.I don't want to be one of those guys.
"I know I have the perfect opportunity. May 6 is my opportunity to retire on top as champion and not ever come back. Why should I go out in September and risk all that?''
That's a question De La Hoya must answer for himself yet few people in boxing believe De La Hoya hasn't already decided what he will do and against whom. After stopping Mayorga he spoke of no shortage of deserving opponents. He mentioned Mayweather, of course, but said he would never fight him if his trainer, who happens to be Mayweather's father, continues to refuse to work with him for such a match.
He mentioned Felix Trinidad but said he would not fight him at 160. He mentioned Winky Wright and Antonio Margarito. He made obvious that he understood the existence of each and the risk they represented. Several months ago, in fact, De La Hoya asked a close associate what he thought of a match with Mayweather. When the friend seemed unenthused, De La Hoya said there were ways to beat him.
The friend agreed but also pointed out Mayweather's style - speed and movement - is terrible for him at this stage of his career. In many ways it is similar to Shane Mosley, the man who twice outpointed De La Hoya using the same approach Mayweather will. When he was done speaking, De La Hoya silently bit his lip and nodded. Was it a nod of agreement or a defiant one of resolve?
No one knows but Oscar De La Hoya and the smart money is betting he's already sorted out the possibilities and knows the direction he's headed. Retirement would be the wise course if he truly wants to leave boxing the way he described - with his hand held high.
But challenges are what men like De La Hoya are about. It is what has lured so many aging champions back into the ring one time, or more, too many. The likelihood that he can ignore the call for one last mega-moment seems slim yet De La Hoya's approach to the business of boxing has always been far more intelligent than most of his peers. After stopping Mayorga, he said, "This guy was perfect.''
The next guy, if there is a next guy, won't be. That he understands.
"No fight after this is a guarantee,'' De La Hoya said. "I'll sit down with my wife and family and my team and see if it's worth fighting again. The decision I'll be making in the next few weeks I'm sure will catch a lot of people by surprise.''
Only if it's Floyd Mayweather, Jr...or nobody at all.
