By Brent Matteo Alderson
Photo © Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com

It happened as if the boxing Gods had ordained it.  Oscar De La Hoya met Marco Rudolph in the gold medal round of the Olympics, the same man who handed him his first loss in five years last summer in the 1991 Amateur World Championships.

This time, Oscar performed like the boxing superstar that he’s destined to be by winning a dominating 7-2 decision that was punctuated by a third round knock down from De La Hoya’s vaunted left hook. 

Of the punch that seemingly secured him the Gold Medal and exacted sweet revenge for that disappointing loss the year before Oscar commented, “I really didn’t throw it with a lot of power.  If I had I don’t think he would have gotten up!”

Oscar’s ascendance to the top of an Olympic podium seemed imminent, but in reality winning Gold in Barcelona was anything, but easy. 

He barely squeaked by South Korea’s Sunk Sik Hong in the semi-finals by winning a razor thin 11-10 decision after getting penalized for holding in the last minute of the bout.

He was fortunate not to be a victim of the controversial computer scoring system which injudiciously ruined the Olympic dreams of a number of fighters, specifically those of Americans Montell Griffin and Eric Griffin.

Still, Oscar made good on the promise of winning the Olympics for his mother who died from breast cancer in October of 1990. Now his amateur career is over he’s looking forward to becoming a professional. He feels as though his boxing style and power are better suited for the pro-game. 

“In the amateurs, the idea was to throw as many punches as possible and in the pros, Oscar can settle down on his heels and really unload,” commented De La Hoya’s trainer Robert Alcazar. 

Considering Oscar is leaving the amateurs with a record of 223-5 and 153 knockouts it’s easy to see why the De La Hoya clan believes that the professional ranks will magnify Oscar’s power, especially since amateur fighters have to wear head gear and ten ounce gloves.

Fighting without headgear isn’t the main reason why Oscar is looking forward to fighting as professional.

“Above all I won’t ever again have to worry about the reflexes of five amateur judges, who have to tap a computer pad to show if a certain blow of mine is a clean shot.” 

In the pros it sounds like his fists are going to be the judge, jury, and the executioner.

Oscar De La Hoya’s Olympic Recap Barcelona/1992
July 3-  KO 3 Adilson Silva (BRA)
August 1 W 3 (16-4) Moses Odion (NIG)
August 3 W 3 (16-7) Tontcho Tontchev (BUL)
August 6 W 3 (11-10) Sung Sik Hong (SK)
August 8 W 3 (7-2) Marco Rudolph (GER)

Notes:

This article was written in the present-tense with the intention of momentarily transplanting the reader back to the summer of 1992 when De La Hoya first broke into the public’s consciousness by winning the Olympics.

Eric Griffin’s controversial loss to Rafael Lozano received the most attention from American Media, but I felt Montell Griffin’s loss to Torsten May was the most outlandish.  Montell out fought the 6’4 German and opened a nasty cut over his right eye, but was allowed to continue and received a gift decision. 

Torsten had won the 1991 Amateur World Championships and had graced the cover of one of the International Amateur Boxing Association’s magazines. As a result he was perceived as their Olympic darling and seemingly received preferential treatment from the officials on his way to the Gold Medal. 

Current Lightweight World Champion Joel Casamayor won the Gold Medal in the 1992 Games in the 119 pound weight class.

The boxers from the 1992 American Olympic were actually pretty successful as professionals. Montell Griffin, Chris Byrd. Raul Marquez, Vernon Forrest, Oscar De La Hoya, and Tim Austin all ended up winning major world titles.

Felix Savon won his first Olympic Gold in Barcelona and would eventually equal Teofilo Stevenson’s feat of three Olympic Heavyweight Gold Medals.

Laszlo Papp of Hungary, Teofilo Stevenson, and Felix Savon are the only boxers in history to have won three Gold medals.
 
This is the second installment of a special series which is meant to refresh boxing fan’s memories of Oscar De La Hoya’s glorious career and will coincide with the build up to Super Fight 2007 De La Hoya-Mayweather.  Please click this link
https://www.boxingscene.com/index.php?m=show&id=6875 to read the first article in the series. 

Brent Matteo Alderson, a graduate of UCLA, has been part of the staff at BoxingScene.com since 2004 and teaches Spanish at the High School level in Southern California.  He has published articles in Ring Magazine, KO, World Boxing, Boxing 2006, and Latin Boxing Magazine.  He has also been featured on the ESPN Classic television program “Who’s Number One?”  Please e-mail any comments to BoxingAficionado@aol.com