Just over 2 weeks ago Oscar De La Hoya, the boxing legend himself turned to Facebook to write about his worries for the upcoming Mayweather-McGregor fight, about how it was a ‘farce,’ a ‘joke,’ and a ‘circus.’
This lead to an angry, cuss-filled response from Dana White, president of the UFC, he seemed to be quite shocked and perturbed by Oscar saying that he didn’t support the fight, and also saying that he didn’t think boxing would recover from it.
Instead of writing three separate articles on it, we decided to make one fun-filled, action packed, article that included all the details…
Enjoy!
First we have Oscar’s original Facebook post…
“To my fellow #boxing fans:
I write in the hopes that together we can protect the sport of boxing.
With each passing day, it looks more and more likely that the circus known as Floyd Mayweather Vs. Conor McGregor will be coming to town in the near future.
As undercard fights start to take form, athletic commissions give their blessings in exchange for millions of dollars and the fighters start counting even more cash, one group will eventually be left to make sure this farce doesn’t occur.
We, the fans, who are the lifeblood of our sport.
Boxing is starting to dig out of the hole that Floyd and Manny Pacquiao shoveled by waiting seven years to put on a fight that ended up being as dull as it was anti-climactic.
2017 has started off as a banner year for boxing. Joshua vs. Klitschko; Thurman vs. Garcia; Golovkin vs. Jacobs; Canelo vs. Chavez. All four of these fights – and many more — have brought the fight game back and reinvigorated interest from the ever-elusive casual fan.
But if you thought Mayweather/Pacquiao was a black eye for our sport – a matchup between two of the best pound-for-pound fighters that simply didn’t deliver — just wait until the best boxer of a generation dismantles someone who has never boxed competitively at any level – amateur or professional.
Our sport might not ever recover.
I fully understand the initial attraction from any fan of combat sports. McGregor is almost certainly the best pound-for-pound MMA fighter. Floyd is Floyd — the most dominant boxer of his time.
But success in one sport does not guarantee success in another. Far from it. And let’s be clear, these are two different sports — from the size of the gloves fighters wear, to the size and shape of the ring, to the fact the one sport allows combatants to use their legs to strike.
Think about it, beyond Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders, what other athlete has successfully competed in two sports in the modern age? And Jackson and Sanders both played both baseball and football throughout their high school and college careers before going professional.
Furthermore, it’s not like McGregor would be fighting a good fighter, let alone a mediocre one. He would be fighting the best. To use a bit of an extreme analogy, I happen to be a pretty good golfer. Could I potentially hold my own on one of the second-tier tours? Maybe. But would I be able to compete with Rory McIlroy, Jordan Speith or Sergio Garcia? Of course not. Nor would I think to try.
Now, I know critics will say that I’m only writing this letter because my company is promoting what will be the culmination of an outstanding boxing year when Canelo Alvarez takes on Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in September, and I don’t want anything to distract attention away from that fight.
But my interest is in the health of boxing as a whole. It always has been. And if Floyd were to come out of retirement to take on someone like Keith “One–time” Thurman, Errol Spence or some other top welterweight, not only would I applaud the fight, I’d be the first one on line for a ticket.
That kind of fight is what the fans – and I am a fan first — deserve.
Which brings me back to the circus.
Floyd’s and Conor’s motivation is clear. It’s money. In fact, they don’t even pretend it’s not. But it’s also a lack of consequences for when the fight ends up being the disaster that is predicted. After this fight, neither of them will need us anymore. Floyd will go back to retirement — presumably for good this time with another nine-figure paycheck — and Conor will go back to the UFC.
It’s a win-win for them. It’s a lose-lose for us. We’ll be $100 lighter and we will have squandered another opportunity to bring boxing back to its rightful place as the sport of kings.
At this point, only we can shut the circus down by making it clear that we won’t pay to see a joke of a fight and telling our casual-fan friends that they shouldn’t either.
Sincerely,
Oscar”
Second, we have Dana White’s angry interview with TMZ Sports…
“What the fuck, Oscar? Listen, Oscar de la Hoya and I have had a good relationship for a long time. If you look in the past, including the Canelo vs. Chavez fight, I have been very supportive of every event that he does,” White said. “I’ve always liked Oscar. Bob Arum and I don’t get along. If Bob Arum and I had the last two fighters on Earth, I still wouldn’t make a fight with that scumbag.
“But, Oscar and I have always had a good relationship and I was just at that fight,” White continued. “He’s talking about money grabs, Canelo vs Chavez, you’re going to put on a fight like that and then call Mayweather vs. McGregor a money grab?”
He even says that Oscar was also trying to put on the Mayweather VS. McGregor fight in recent months…
“You were trying to make that fight four months ago! It’s crazy,” White said. “What is this guy doing? What’s his deal? That’s what I’m basically saying to him. What’s up? Why would you say something like that? Instead, it makes it sound like he has no confidence whatsoever in [Golovkin] vs. Canelo, which I have come out publicly and said it’s a good fight. I like that fight and I will watch that fight. He seems completely insecure and it’s one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.
“And talk about two-faced and contradicting and the list goes on and on,” he continued. “Hating and, I don’t know, like he has no confidence in this fight. Oscar, what the fuck? Seriously? What the fuck is going on with you? Are you nuts? Are you out of your mind? Have you lost your fucking mind? What’s going on?”
And, to rap the whole fiasco up, we have Oscar’s response to that video…
“My response is, I have to take the high road,” De La Hoya said. “Obviously, he says my fight sucks, I say the same thing. That fight is going to suck. It really is because McGregor is not a boxer, he doesn’t have not one round of experience inside the ring as a boxer, and he’s going up against the best boxer on the planet, in our generation, against Mayweather?”
“He’s the best MMA fighter, the best UFC fighter, I have all the respect in the world for him, for UFC and for Dana White for what he’s accomplished and for what he’s done, but he is not a boxer and he’s going up against the best boxer on the planet? In our generation? Against Mayweather, and he’s 0-0 and he thinks he’s going to beat him? It’s impossible. I couldn’t beat him,” proclaimed De La Hoya.
“We know who Mayweather is. Mayweather is a pure boxer who is the best boxer on the planet today. We know that. Therefore, we know it’s going to be an easy fight for him,” he said.