By Mark Vester
During training camp, former six division champion Oscar De La Hoya had a bad feeling that last December's fight Manny Pacquiao would end in a loss. He was right. Pacquiao dominated and stopped him in eight rounds. De La Hoya retired not long after. During last May's win over Steve Forbes, De La Hoya knew the end was near when Forbes was able to tag him up often with combinations.
“I got hit like no tomorrow,” De La Hoya said to Sports Media Pro. “So that was obviously a clear sign to me.”
After that lackluster performance, De La Hoya was unable to make himself retire and took the fight with Manny Pacquiao. During the training camp, he says the sparring partners were beating him up and the camp was not going as planned. It was the first time in his career that he saw a loss coming but it made him realize his time in boxing, as a fighter, was up.
“The Pacquiao fight, you know, that was kind of like the icing on the cake so to speak,” De La Hoya said later. “But I did feel that things weren’t right in training camp. I did start getting beat up during sparring, which in my entire boxing career has never happened – ever, ever in my life. I kind of had a hunch that something was wrong in the Pacquiao fight. I had a hunch that maybe I was not going to beat him. And yes, I did lose in a devastating way to Pacquiao. And yes, people never imagined that would happen."
"But it happened for a reason because it made my decision that much easier to retire from a sport that I love dearly. I feel I have all my marbles. I feel I can still physically work. I feel that I'm still intact. So I think I've come out okay from such a difficult sport and a sport that I've been competing in at the highest level for such a long time.”
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