LOS ANGELES – When Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. met last May, it was as much about business as it was about boxing. The fight would draw a record 2.4 million pay-per-view buys, generate an excess of $120 million in revenue and attract the kind of sponsorship and media attention the sport had not seen in years.
De La Hoya earned $50 million; Mayweather something close to that, but when it ended in a split decision favoring Mayweather there wasn’t an outcry for a rematch. The fight was doomed not to live up to the enormous hype.
Nonetheless, there will be a rematch this September and this time money isn’t the sole motivation. For De La Hoya it’s personal.
“There was a lot of hype and new strategies being implemented when it comes to marketing to try to make the biggest event ever,” De La Hoya said of the first bout. “You do get caught up in that. Now that I’ve been in there with Floyd and been through that situation, this is personal. I’m going to beat him. You watch.”
De La Hoya was speaking in the middle of an empty soccer field at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. It was late Saturday night about an hour after earning a unanimous decision over Steve Forbes before a sellout crowd of 27,000.
Though he won easily (119-109 on two cards and all 12 rounds on the other), De La Hoya had a welt under his left eye, swelling along his right check, a bruise on the bridge of his nose and a swollen left hand that will require X-rays. The undersized but crafty Forbes never went down and fought competitively enough to give De La Hoya the kind of workout he needed to prepare for his rematch with the unbeaten Mayweather.
In the last fight De La Hoya, 35, faded down the stretch, losing 115-113 and 116-112 on two cards, while winning 115-113 on another. Freddie Roach was his trainer for that fight, but last night, Floyd Mayweather Sr. was back in De La Hoya’s corner and his conditioning was much better.
Fighting in his home area for the first time since 2001, De La Hoya seemed inspired by the “Homecoming” crowd and bounced on his toes throughout the fight, landing 127 jabs despite the pain and swelling in his hand. He knows the jab will be crucial in the rematch with Mayweather. With Floyd Sr. in De La Hoya’s corner, the rematch will be personal for Floyd Jr., too. The last thing Money Mayweather wants to do is lose to De La Hoya and to his father.