oscar de la hoya

Oscar De La Hoya (born February 4, 1973) — nicknamed the Golden Boy — is a Mexican American boxer who won a gold medal for the United States Boxing Team at the Barcelona Olympic Games and is considered one of boxing's all time greats. Oscar De La Hoya became Ring Magazine's "Fighter of the Year" in 1995 and Ring Magazine's best "Pound for Pound" fighter in the world in 1997. His fights throughout his entire career have generated a total of almost half a billion dollars in sales alone. He is also the only fighter in the history of boxing to win world titles in six weight classes

During his amateur career, De La Hoya's record was 223-5 with 163 knockouts. He was the United States' top Olympic Boxing hope when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died at age 35. On her death bed, he promised her that he would win an Olympic gold medal.

De La Hoya was raised as the son of Mexican immigrants in impoverished circumstances in East Los Angeles, California. At the age of eight he was the youngest fighter to win first place in Freewill Games. He never lost a fight for 4 years, 5 months until he met Marco Rudolf, who was the best fighter from Germany at the time. He avenged the loss in the Olympics by winning the gold medal.

On November 23, 1992, De La Hoya made his pro debut. He went on to win titles in 4 different weight divisions and beat former and current world champions Troy Dorsey (TKO 1), Jorge Paez, (KO 2), Genaro Hernandez (TKO 6), John John Molina (W 12), Rafael Ruelas (TKO 2), Julio César Chávez (TKO 4, TKO 8), Miguel Angel Gonzalez (W 12), Jesse James Leija (TKO 2), Pernell Whitaker, Hector "Macho" Camacho (W 12), Ike Quartey (W 12), Arturo Gatti (TKO 5), Javier Castillejo (W 12), and Fernando Vargas (TKO 11). His losses include a controversial majority-decision loss to Félix Trinidad and two decision losses to Shane Mosley, a split-decision, and a controversial unanimous decision. He has been stopped once in his career by Bernard Hopkins (KO 9). The fight with Félix Trinidad was the highest selling non-heavyweight pay per view of all-time, selling over 1.2 million buys.

On September 14, 2002, De La Hoya fought his nemesis "Ferocious" Fernando Vargas. Their feud had began when De la Hoya allegedly laughed at Vargas years earlier when Vargas fell into a snowbank. After fiercely competitive early rounds, De La Hoya seized control of the latter half of the fight. In round 11, De La Hoya dropped Vargas with a left hook. Vargas got up at the count of nine, but de la Hoya finished him with a barrage of punches forcing the referee to stop the fight at 1:48 of round 11 (TKO 11). It was later revealed that Vargas had tested positive for steroids in his post-fight drug test.

On May 3, 2003, as part of the Cinco de Mayo festivities, he retained his WBC and WBA world junior middleweight championships when the corner of former world champion Yory Boy Campas threw in the towel, and officially gave De La Hoya a seventh round technical-knockout win. On September 13, he and former rival Mosley met once again, in Las Vegas, and Mosley took away De la Hoya's world title belts via controversial unanimous decision. De La Hoya would later demand an investigation into the scorecards.

De La Hoya next challenged Felix Sturm for the WBO world middleweight title on June 5, 2004. He was awarded a controversial unanimous decision, to become the first boxer in history to win world titles in six different weight divisions. All three judges scored the bout 115-113 in favor of De la Hoya. Compubox statistics counted Sturm as landing 234 of 541 punches, while counting De La Hoya as landing 188 of 792.

Middleweight Challenge against Hopkins

After that, he hoped to unify that title with the three other world middleweight championships, held by Bernard Hopkins, on September 18. He lost to Hopkins by a ninth round knockout. A left hand to the body sent him to the canvas, knocking De La Hoya out for the first time in his career. Hopkins was ahead on two scorecards by the scores of 79-73 and 78-74, while a third judge had De la Hoya winning 77-75. De La Hoya made $30 million for the fight and Hopkins, who made only $300,000 in a fight just nine months before fighting De La Hoya, got a minimum of $10 million. It was the biggest payday of Hopkin's career. Hopkins would later join de la Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions, a Boxing promotion firm.

Explosive Comeback Against Mayorga

De La Hoya faced WBC world junior middleweight Ricardo Mayorga on May 6, 2006 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In the opening round, he dropped Mayorga with a right hand followed by a huge left hook. Mayorga rose but walked into another hail of shots and was about to go down for a second time when De La Hoya ripped him with another right hand, but Mayorga grabbed on to De la Hoya to stay up. Mayorga's only positive moment came in the third, when an uppercut stunned De La Hoya, but Oscar had done more than enough to win the round. In the 6th round, firing punch after punch, De La Hoya dropped Mayorga to his knees, and although Mayorga got up, he was in bad shape. De La Hoya pounced on Mayorga immediately and never stopped firing as Mayorga wilted along the ropes. De La Hoya fired 21 punches, landing the majority of them, forcing referee Nady to step in at 1:25.

Many have thought it would be a close fight because de La Hoya was coming off a long layoff. However, he fought much better than expected and won the bout by a TKO in round 6.

De La Hoya-Mayweather Superfight

De La Hoya did not fight again in 2006, but scheduled a May 5, 2007 bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr., who is the recognized welterweight champion and Pound-for-pound number one in the world. The fight is scheduled to take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. De la Hoya's WBC super welterweight title will be at stake. early Las Vegas odds have Oscar as a 2-to-1 underdog to the younger Mayweather. It has been reported that Oscar will earn at least $25 million for the fight, and Floyd will earn at least $10 million.

De La Hoya became embroiled in controversy when Freddie Roach, who is training him for the Mayweather fight, admitted in a deposition that De la Hoya brought $250,000 in cash in a suitcase and gave it to super featherweight Boxing star Manny Pacquiao as an inducement to try to sign him to a promotional contract. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported the story on March 1, 2007, and the Los Angeles Times followed with a report on March 2, 2007