By Tom Donelson
Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions recently put together an HBO Latino televised card that returned boxing to its roots. In boxing’s early years, boxing was the opportunity for those on the lower end of the economic scale to move up economically and many different ethnic groups had their own boxing heroes to worship. Fans filled up the local boxing clubs on a weekly basis to see their heroes fight.
The Golded Boy card which pitted fighters from Thailand, against fighters from Mexico, attempted to inject some new excitement into the boxing game, almost bringing an Olympic feel to professional boxing. The seasoned pros from both countries fought their hearts on a card dubbed as the ‘World Boxing Cup’. The object of the card was for each team to pile up enough points through winning their individual bouts in order to win the first ever World Boxing Cup trophy.
A few years back, ESPN’s Brian Kenny talked about changing or adding structure to the sport of boxing. He mentioned, “You need to come up with an entire league where there's a system with structure. Boxing could thrive so well with some sort of structure. I don't know where that would come from. It could come from a national boxing commission or it could come from some sort of league.”
A league concept based on a nationalistic approach or another approach could radically change the way we view boxing as a sport. As it stands, boxing is in a state of its usual chaos with no one certain of who is champion and who is not. A league structure could begin the process of developing a new business model for boxing. A league means some form of centralized authority to set the rules. Something that boxing needs at this moment.
Another aspect of this, is the effect upon the boxers themselves. Not every boxer would have the opportunity to fight for a championship, but they could certainly compete for other goals- like a team championship. Sports like cross-country have combined individual sports with team concepts and even golf has their own team concept when the best American golfers challenge the world every two years.
Mexico took five of the six fights against Thailand and the overall card combined young fighters and championship contenders from both countries. Hugo Cazaras retained his WBO 108 pound championship and Fernando Montiel maintained his 115 pound WBO strap. Daniel Ponce de Leon captured Sod Looknongyangtoy’s WBO junior featherweight championship and Jhonny Gonzalez’ superior strength advantage was too much for veteran Ratanachai Sor Vorapin, as Gonzalez stopped him to become the new WBO bantamweight champion. There was a combination of national pride and championship belts on the line, at the very same time.
De La Hoya combined championship caliber fights with a nationalistic twist. For Mexico, it was a spectacular night as the Mexican fighters took five of the six scheduled bouts and snatched two new championships. The fighters from Thailand showed heart, courage and sportsmanship. There were no bitter arguments on this night, fighters were courteous to each other before and after each contest.
There are some interesting possibilities that one could develop as a result of this event. Golden Boy could bring back the same structure with a similar national twist by pitting Puerto Rico against Mexico or how about the United States against England? They could even create city to city battles. We could end up seeing fighters from Boston taking on fighters from New York in the legendary Madison Square Garden. Add some championship belts on the line and you have the beginnings of some interesting match-ups and rivalries.
Who knows how this concept will work in the future, but De La Hoya should at least be credited with coming up something unique while going back to boxing’s past when ethnic pride would often lead to interesting sold out events. Boxing has been searching for something to bring back the fans that walked away from the sport. Only time and careful planning will tell us if the idea that Oscar De La Hoya’s company created, will actually help resurrect the sport.
