In a triple-crown verbal slaying of his three least-liked people, Oscar De La Hoya unleashed a new “Clapback Thursday” that poured it on Dana White, Richard Schaefer and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
De La Hoya, who formerly promoted Alvarez and employed Schaefer as CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, has engaged in a long-running rivalry/feud with UFC CEO White, who staged his first boxing promotion Saturday with Terence Crawford wrestling the undisputed super middleweight title from Mexico’s Alvarez.
De La Hoya selected Crawford as the winner before the fight and was quick to remind the masses of his former fighter’s downfall.
“I predicted the Canelo-Crawford fight like a goddamn fortune teller,” De La Hoya said in the latest episode of his informal social media series. “Canelo’s feet were cemented on the canvas as he was hitting air. Props to Crawford … he fought a beautiful fight, like taking candy from a baby, made [Alvarez] look silly.
“Canelo’s entire career … was a huge flub. The only real fighters he’s faced are [Floyd] Mayweather, [recently undisputed light heavyweight champion Dmitry] Bivol and Crawford, and they all toyed with him.”
He noted that Mayweather collected on a $50,000 bet on Crawford.
De La Hoya then turned to Saudi Arabia boxing financier Turki Alalshikh’s promotion, opining that matchmakers dropped the ball by putting unbeaten 154lbs contender Callum Walsh in the co-main event and a young Saudi Arabia-based lightweight in the Netflix opener.
While 41 million watched, the card had nearly half the viewership of the Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano trilogy fight earlier this year, while Alalshikh directed more than $100 million of his country’s funds to Alvarez’s purse.
“I feel bad for Turki, wasting all that money,” De La Hoya said. “You have to fire your matchmakers. … It was the biggest fight of the decade and your matchmakers put on that undercard? That’s the best they can do? I would’ve put [super middleweight Hamzah] Sheeraz vs. [unbeaten 175lbs champion David] Benavidez as a co-main event, with the winner fighting the winner of Canelo-Crawford. That’s how you promote. That’s how you matchmake.”
Then came White’s turn.
“Speaking of poor promotion, Dana White didn’t have his best week. His T-shirt shrank smaller every minute, especially when he was questioned about attempting to amend [boxing’s federal regulations],” De La Hoya said, showing the back-and-forth in which video boxing reporter Sean Zittel shamed White for his attempted plans to rank and award titles to fighters he keeps under contract.
“You’re saying this reporter’s an asshole because he’s asking you a legitimate question?” De La Hoya asked. “TKO needs it to change so they can fuck fighters over. Sorry, Uncle Fester. You can’t muzzle the boxing media like you do in the UFC.”
De La Hoya noticed White’s absence through most of the undercard and his apparent viewing of something on his phone during the action when he was seated next to business partner Alalshikh.
“I wonder if [White] regrets leaving the UFC for a sport that doesn’t want him,” De La Hoya said. “It’s like having a loyal girlfriend and ditching her for a hot one-night stand who ghosts you. … That’s Dana White.”
The climactic torching erupted on Schaefer, whom De La Hoya accused of orchestrating a company takeover a decade ago when powerful manager Al Haymon took his fighters to form Premier Boxing Champions.
De La Hoya previously told the Los Angeles Times that Schaefer tried to trick him into selling his company to a Kansas investment group while he was in rehab for a third time.
“I had just checked in, under medication, in a fog, a freaking zombie, and [Schaefer] took those papers to me and said, ‘I have a buyer for your company,’” De La Hoya said in a 2015 interview. “Something just told me not to. I got this bad feeling, this intuition, ‘No, I cannot.’ This is my baby. Golden Boy is my baby.”
Schaefer has since moved through stints with UFC fighter Jon Jones; the Probellum group headed by Irish drug cartel figure Daniel Kinahan; and then Mayweather Promotions, before announcing he is with Alvarez now.
“To make matters worse, for the entire promotion, you have the ultimate douchebag,” De La Hoya said. “Richard Schaefer tried to weasel his way back into an industry where he’s been canned by everyone, including myself. He tried to insert himself into everywhere he wasn’t wanted. Everything this guy touches turns to shit. He failed with me, Anthem Sports, Jon Jones, Mayweather, Probellum … the list goes on. This guy is the biggest dump on the planet.”
Even though De La Hoya typically seeks to maintain a smile while posting his “Clapback” shows taking aim at those he perceives as falling short in the sport, the Schaefer callout was a bit more fierce.
“I never usually talk poorly about any human being, but this guy tried to [screw] me over in ways you couldn’t even believe or imagine,” said De La Hoya, who will stage his own card on DAZN on Saturday night at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California, with undisputed women’s flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora and unified minimumweight fighter Oscar Collazo in separate bouts.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
