Oscar De La Hoya Retires From Boxing

[Ishy Aytan]

Great Career and great resume, a true icon for our sport.


P.S, He won that fight against Trinidad!

[Uturn]

Oscar had no choice but to hang them up but he can walk away and keep his head up high, he done wonders for the sport and always had boxing at his heart. What a great career he had props to Oscar.

[The_Demon]

the man has fought everyone worth mentioning in the last 20 years.and the best 3 p4p fighters of this decade.lots of respect

[mexican boss]

did a lot for the sport, but got tired of his azz towards the end...respect though..

[Cuauhtémoc1520]

I don't think most of you even understand the impact Oscar had on pro boxing. Not only did he leave an incredible resume' but he also changed the way we looked at boxing.

It was thought that only heavyweights could truly generate the interest and money that could keep boxing in the main stream but Oscar proved all that wrong. Oscar was everything right in boxing when it needed it, a good guy so to speak. He won the gold medal for the U.S in the Olympics and then went on to have an incredible career spanning 6 weight classes and 10 world titles.

He was the face that boxing needed after Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard left the sport. Oscar leaves as the all time money earner in the sport and rightfully so.

He's definitely an ATG and will be in the Hall of Fame very soon. He got some decisions that he shouldn't have (Sturm) and lost some he should have won (Tito and Mosley 2 ).

The incredible thing is, he could have a bigger impact as a promoter and CEO of Golden Boy than he even could as a fighter and that's saying a lot. While Oscar is gone from inside the ring, his hands will be all over the sport of boxing for a very long time.

Thanks Oscar for all the memories and you will always be one of my favorite fighters of all time. Not only for the way you handled yourself in the ring but outside of it.

[Dave Rado]

It was thought that only heavyweights could truly generate the interest and money that could keep boxing in the main stream but Oscar proved all that wrong.

Oscar was a great fighter, and a great draw but that bit is simply untrue. Leonard/Hagler/Hearns/Duran generated more interest in the sport than any modern Heavyweight other than Ali. Before that, Ray Robinson did likewise, and before him, Henry Armstrong.

[Silkstone]

Thanks Oscar. You gave me alot of joy over the years watching your fights. Win or lose, you always came to fight and took on the best. Enjoy retirement and your rooms full of money champ! Most of us can remember all the good years and not the shell of a fighter you were towards the end.

I agree wholeheartedly. His presence will be sorely missed inside the ring. I certainly wouldn't be apposed to seeing him as a commentator in the future. I think his insights and experience, from the Gatti win, to the Pacman loss could offer quite a lot.

[Cuauhtémoc1520]

Oscar was a great fighter, and a great draw but that bit is simply untrue. Leonard/Hagler/Hearns/Duran generated more interest in the sport than any modern Heavyweight other than Ali. Before that, Ray Robinson did likewise, and before him, Henry Armstrong.

That's absolutely rediculous. Numbers don't lie my friend, sorry. Don't confuse talent and ATG rankings with interest. Oscar was the face of boxing for oever a decade. Duran/Hearns/Hagler fought in a crowded division with each other.

Ray leonard rose above all of them as far as recognition and money earnings because of his charisma and good looks. The rest of them didn't even come close.

You have to understand the context in which I say this. Oscar came at a time where money was the biggest thing in boxing, someone like Armstrong that fought so long ago, could have never generated the interest Oscar did basically because of the use of mass media that exists today.

Like I said, every decade a fighter defines that decade. In the 30's and early 40's it was Joe Lewis. In the 50's it was Rocky Marciano. In the 60's it was Floyd Patterson. In the 70's it was Ali. In the 80's it was Sugar Ray Leonard and in the 90's it was Oscar De La Hoya.

Those are the faces we see in those decades...

[Dave Rado]

That's absolutely rediculous. Numbers don't lie my friend, sorry. Don't confuse talent and ATG rankings with interest. Oscar was the face of boxing for oever a decade. Duran/Hearns/Hagler fought in a crowded division with each other.

Ray leonard rose above all of them as far as recognition and money earnings because of his charisma and good looks. The rest of them didn't even come close.

You have to understand the context in which I say this. Oscar came at a time where money was the biggest thing in boxing, someone like Armstrong that fought so long ago, could have never generated the interest Oscar did basically because of the use of mass media that exists today.

Like I said, every decade a fighter defines that decade. In the 30's and early 40's it was Joe Lewis. In the 50's it was Rocky Marciano. In the 60's it was Floyd Patterson. In the 70's it was Ali. In the 80's it was Sugar Ray Leonard and in the 90's it was Oscar De La Hoya.

Those are the faces we see in those decades...

When Hagler fought Hearns hundreds of millions of people watched it worldwide. PPV wasn't big then, the best fights were mostly free to air. Everyone was talking about that fight, not just boxing fans, everyone. People who had never seen any boxing match in their lives saw that fight.

Same with Leonard-Hearns and Leonard-Duran.

I remember running the London Marathon just after the Hagler-Hearns fight, and all the runners were talking about the fight, even the women.

Oscar's biggest fights were seen by far smaller audiences. Most of them were on PPV in the US so were only seen by a million or so people, or maybe double that because of bar screenings. Even if it was treble that, it still doesn't even compare with the hundreds of millions who saw Hagler-Hearns. Outside the US (and perhaps Mexico), it was only boxing fans who talked about those fights, most people in the bars I went to didn't even know about his fights.

In any case, you admitted in your post that Leonard was as big a draw as any heavyweight at the time, which means you're admitting Oscar wasn't the first non-Heavyweight fighter that was true of, which was what you claimed originally.

I'm not putting down what he did for the sport, which was tremendous, I'm just saying keep it in proportion, he wasn't the first non-Heavyweight who generated as much interest in boxing as a Heavyweight. And because most of his fights were on PPV he wasn't seen by anywhere near as many fans as the greats of the 70s and 80s, especially outside the US.

[Lacrimosa]

Those are the faces we see in those decades...

After i have read you first post in this threadm i thought you had some common sense. Now i think you just want to make some impression and make people think your way

What faces are you talking about??? Any era wouldn`t exist without people involved in it... There wouldn`t be Ali without Foreman, Frazier, Norton, Shavers, Chuvalo, Quarry an etc... And vice versa... It was not Ali who created that era; those were all of them...

And when you`re talking about the 90th personally i don`t think about ODLH... I think about Whitaker, Toney, Hopkins (probably he did his best in 2000s), Jones, Tyson, Lewis...

Personalities are not capable of creating eras and make history... Don`t forget about their surroundings...

P.S. But, yes, ODLH had a great impact on boxing ... Positive i hope...