By Radio Rahim
Los Angeles, California - Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is not budging from his position when it comes to the proposed pay-per-view boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and UFC champion Conor McGregor.
Last week, De La Hoya wrote a public letter on his Facebook page - and he called for a fan boycott of the Mayweather-McGregor event.
There are ongoing discussions to finalize a deal for Mayweather-McGregor fight, for a date in the fall. McGregor announced earlier this month that he had signed his half of the deal, and now the details are being worked out with Mayweather's side of the equation.
Mayweather, who retired in September 2015 with an undefeated record of 49-0 and 26 knockouts, would be an overwhelming favorite to beat McGregor - the biggest draw in combat sports, but has never had a professional boxing match.
When Mayweather retired, he was regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
De La Hoya called the fight a "farce" and said he "fears the sport might never recover" in the aftermath of this event.
He said it took the sport two years to recover from the fallout of Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao in May 2015, which generated 4.6 million buys on pay-per-view, but also turned off a lot of people from boxing when the contest fell very short of the hype.
De La Hoya is also concerned with Mayweather-McGregor taking away some of the headlines and some of the worldwide coverage which his company expects for the fall showdown between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin - arguably the biggest pay-per-view fight since Mayweather-Pacquiao.
UFC President Dana White went on the offensive, during an interview with TMZ, and lashed out at De La Hoya.
"I'm saying 'what the f*** Oscar?' Oscar and me have always had a good relationship. I was just at the fight [at T-Mobile in Las Vegas]. He's talking about money grabs... Canelo-Chavez.. you know what I mean. You're going to put on a fight like that and then call Mayweather-McGregor a money-grab when you were trying to make that fight [between Canelo-McGregor] four months ago. It's crazy. What is this guy doing, what's his deal?," White said.
"Im basically saying to him 'what's up'. Why is he saying something like that? It makes it sound like he has no confidence in Triple G vs. Canelo - which I have come out and said publicly is a good fight. I like the fight, I'll watch the fight. He seems completely insecure and it's one of the weirdest things that I've ever seen. Talk about two-faced and contradicting and hating, and the list goes on and on. Like he has no confidence in his fight. Oscar, what the f*** is going on with you? Are you out of your mind. Have you lost your f***ing mind? What's going on."
De La Hoya made it clear crystal clear that he doesn't have a grudge with White, the UFC or Mayweather - he simply wants to make the sport better by putting on the best fights possible - like Canelo-Golovkin - and fears that a high profile fight like Mayweather-McGregor will damage the entire boxing industry.
"We have our event, which is a real fight obviously. This is nothing against anybody. This is just..... I'm standing behind a sport that I dearly love and that's boxing. And so, you have a UFC fighter, who has no experience whatsoever in boxing... zero.. no professional experience, nothing.... wanting to face the best boxer of our generation. What's going to happen? It's going to be another twelve round snoozer. That's the bottom line," De La Hoya explained to BoxingScene.com.
"And then what's going to happen? People are going to be turned off from boxing once again. That's my beef. I'm coming in as a savior of the sport by making Triple G vs. Canelo, by making all of these great fights and then you'll have that. It's a step backwards, not a step forward."