De La Hoya Retirement Speech

De La Hoya Announces Retirement

"Oscar De La Hoya, who held 10 world titles at six different weights, has officially announced his retirement from the ring. The 36-year-old, known as the "Golden Boy" and arguably the biggest name in boxing during the past decade, said he was hanging up his gloves because he felt he could no longer compete at the highest level.

De La Hoya, who in recent years has also risen to prominence as a promoter, ends his career with a win-loss record of 39-6 including 30 knockouts.He has not fought since Manny Pacquiao inflicted an eighth-round TKO upon him in their non-title fight in Las Vegas in December. At the end of the eighth round, De La Hoya's trainer signalled he had seen enough and the referee stopped the fight. An Olympic gold medallist at the Barcelona games in 1992, the Mexican-American was rated the sport's best pound-for-pound fighter five years later.

According to many critics, the greatest fight of De La Hoya's career was his technical knockout of fellow American Fernando Vargas in Las Vegas in September 2002.
In a bout dubbed "Bad Blood", De La Hoya floored Vargas with a left hook to the head 70 seconds into the 11th round to unify the WBA and WBC super-welterweight titles.
In May 2007, De La Hoya lost the WBC super-welterweight title on a split decision to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas in the highest-grossing fight in boxing history.

Besides running his Golden Boy Promotions company - which will stage Pacquiao's light welterweight showdown with Ricky Hatton in Las Vegas on May 2 - De La Hoya also intends to continue raising money for various charities."

Oh man, tell me someone remembers this:

De La Fraud Goes Down in 8

"It's becoming somewhat of an event when Oscar avoids one of Pacquiao's straight right hands" - Jim Lampley

That is the type of night it was for the former champ. Oscar never stood a chance against the pound for pound king Manny Pacquiao. Pacman dominated rounds 1 through 8 before De La Hoya's camp threw in the white towel.

It's sad really because it was a no win situation for DLH heading into the fight with the worst case scenario being an embarrassing knock out. Even if he had been able to pull off a win (which he was considerably favored to do so) it would not have been all too impressive. He'd have been beating up on a guy half his size.

Instead, Oscar came out looking like the underdog, never looking comfortable and never mounting any sort of offense. Manny was landing close to 50% of his punches and they certainly took a toll as DLH's left eye was all but swelled shut by the 6th round.

The 7th round was the beginning of the end and not just the end of the fight. It became very clear that Oscar was no longer capable of fighting at an elite level as Pacquiao unleashed combo after combo on the former star. After the fight Oscar dodged questions about his future but I think we all know the answer. It is sad really as he is still boxing's biggest draw and without him the sport will continue its depth defying plunge into mediocrity.