By Michael Rosenthal
Oscar De La Hoya and Fernando Vargas couldn’t stand each other at the time they fought in 2002.
The animus supposedly stemmed from an incident at De La Hoya’s Big Bear, California, camp in the early-1990s. As the story went, Vargas, among a group of amateurs staying at the mountain resort, fell during a training run and the Olympic gold medalist ran past and laughed at him rather than help him up.
By the time they fought, the vitriol had reached a boil. De La Hoya’s disdain for Vargas is why he always said with glee that his dramatic 11th-round knockout was the most satisfying victory of his career.
The lead-up to the Gennady Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez fight on September 15 might be worse.
Take their camps’ back-and-forth comments with a grain of salt. At least some of them are meant to sell the pay-per-view event, which is particularly important for lack of a traditional press tour.
I’m sure there are people – including now-promoter De La Hoya, in Alvarez’s case – whispering in the fighters’ ears every day, “Keep on talking, keep on talking. The more you talk, the more money you’re going to make.”
And, in the finest tradition of gamesmanship, they obviously are trying to gain an advantage by getting under the other’s skin. For example, Triple-G would love to make Alvarez so angry that he will be lured into a firefight in the ring.
That said, unless everyone involved has trained in acting in addition to boxing, the animosity appears to be genuine.
I don’t know whether the rematch will be bigger than the original, as De La Hoya has suggested. I sense that the perceived injustice of last year’s draw and Alvarez’s positive drug tests, which led to a postponement of the rematch, has soured some fans on Triple-G-Canelo II.
But to the delight of the promoters, the contentious backdrop definitely adds intrigue to an already compelling rematch.
The fighters’ feelings are understandable.
Golovkin is bitter because a victory in their first meeting was stolen from him by the judges. He’s “upset” (the word he used) that Alvarez’s failed tests, which the Mexican blamed on tainted meat, cost him a giant payday in May and forced him to fight Vanes Martirosyan instead. And he’s angry that, by his estimation, Alvarez hasn’t taken full responsibility for his actions.
The Kazakhstani’s character assassination of his rival might’ve peaked on Monday.
“Canelo, he is not a champion,” Golovkin said before an open workout . “He is a liar who has no respect for the sport of boxing or its fans.”
He continued: “Was I upset that Canelo failed two drug tests? Yes. But I was more upset at Canelo’s team. The excuses they gave, their attitude and Canelo’s reaction, it showed that they have no respect for the sport or the fans. They showed their real faces. They are fakes. I do not feel anger toward him because the rematch was canceled the first time. But I did lose all respect for him. Canelo is not the biggest name in boxing, just the biggest scandal."
Ouch! Naturally, Alvarez doesn’t appreciate Golovkin’s stream of insults.
The sport’s biggest money generator had to endure the indignity of the positive tests and the ensuing six-month suspension, as well as stinging jabs from some members of the media and fans worldwide. Golovkin’s comments and those of his team have kept the criticism on the front burner.
“At (36) years of age, there’s nothing really you can teach this guy. What they have taught him is to run his mouth,” Alvarez said.
The good news for Alvarez is that the fight is only two weeks away. Presumably, that means Golovkin and Co. will soon stop the constant barrage of mockery, at least on the scale they are delivering it now.
And my guess is that the bad blood will fade away entirely in due time. After all, Golovkin and Alvarez will have made more money in two fights than almost all other boxers combined make in their careers.
I would’ve thought at the time that De La Hoya and Vargas would’ve remained enemies for life, such was the distaste that had for one another. Surprise, surprise. I don’t know if they’re friends today but they certainly are friendly, enough so that they’ve worked together in recent years.
I imagine that in 20 or 30 years from now Golovkin and Alvarez will run into each other at a boxing function, smile broadly when they make eye contact, embrace warmly and reminisce for a while about the good ’ol days.
Michael Rosenthal is the most recent winner of the Boxing Writers Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award for excellence in boxing journalism. He has covered boxing in Los Angeles and beyond for almost three decades.
