Sombrero Sporting Mayweather Lands 57%

By Yero Moody, Photos by Naoki Fukuda

De La Hoya vs. Mayweather sets the record!

HBO Sports reported today that 2.15 million pay-per-view buys and $120 million in pay-per-view revenue was generated from last Saturday’s mega fight showdown featuring Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The fight was promoted by Golden Boy Promotions in association with MGM Grand Hotel & Casino. In a fight that set the all-time pay-per-view record by eclipsing the previous mark by a sizable margin of 160,000 buys as well as establishing a new mark for revenue from a pay-per-view telecast, Mayweather scored a split decision victory and captured De La Hoya’s junior middleweight title. The showdown, which featured boxing’s two biggest attractions, produced 1,225,000 buys from cable systems and 925,000 buys from satellite homes throughout the 50 states.

“De La Hoya vs. Mayweather was a record-setting event from the moment the fight was announced,” said Ross Greenburg, President of HBO Sports. “We are delighted that sports fans recognized the greatness of these two future Hall of Famers and tuned in for their showdown. It’s satisfying to see that boxing still connects with sports fans throughout the country and we are determined to continue to present high-profile fights that capture the public’s imagination.”

Mayweather, regarded as the sport’s pound-for-pound king, now possesses a spotless 38-0 record. The 30-year-old Grand Rapids, Michigan native now lives in Las Vegas.

De La Hoya, 34, who has won titles in six weight classes and is the industry’s all-time top pay-per-view performer, has now participated in each of the top six non-heavyweight pay-per view events in history -- including the industry record-setting 2.15 million buys vs. Mayweather; the 1.4 million buys for the Felix Trinidad fight in Sept. 1999; one million buys for the matchup with Bernard Hopkins in September 2004; the Sept. 2003 rematch with Shane Mosley, which generated 950,000 buys; and the Sept. 2002 showdown with Fernando Vargas and the May 2006 encounter with Ricardo Mayorga, both of which registered 935,000 buys.

The De La Hoya vs. Mayweather junior middleweight championship fight will be replayed this Saturday night, May 12 at 10:00 p.m. ET/ PT & 9:00 p.m CT on HBO.

The rebroadcast will include a studio show hosted by Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant with new interviews of Mayweather and De La Hoya, plus highlights from the groundbreaking “De La Hoya/Mayweather 24/7” reality series.

The program will be replayed on HBO2 Sunday, May 13 at 8:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and Tuesday, May 15 at 11:30 p.m. Both times are ET/PT.

De La Hoya/Mayweather: Why Floyd won decisively

By Tony Liang, photo by Naoki Fukuda: I just wanted to start off by stating that I was very impressed with both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya's performance. Both fighters came to fight in tremendous shape and were very determined to win. Both fighter came into fight with logical game plans and were determined to make it their fight. It was also the first time I got to witness De La Hoya using rough house and dirty tactics to hurt his opponent. Even though Oscar fell short on his biggest fight of his career, he did prove to the world that he still got what it takes to compete with the current p4p king pin by his relentless pressure and throwing hurtful punches from opening bell to the final bell.

Now before you guys bash me for calling De La Hoya dirty, during rare successes to pin Floyd on the inside, Oscar seized almost every opportunity to clinch with one hand and hit with the other (foul #3) starting from round one.

The second type foul that I saw De La Hoya used occurred during his flurries when he had Mayweather pinned for a brief period and unload some wild shots which included some fist, forearm, and elbows (foul #8). Now to the causal boxing fans they might think that Oscar should have won or even up to what Mayweather did on the outside but there is no way that the judges does not see the fouls or score as winning rounds for De La Hoya.

Now I don’t know if De La Hoya intended to do all those fouls but it was suggested on 24/7 that Freddie Roache and De La Hoya wanted to make this bout a rough one for Mayweather. Even with the fouls, I had Mayweather winning eight rounds to four same as Chuck Giampa of 116-112. However 115-113 is still reasonable to me and anything closer will be being very generous to De La Hoya, in my opinion. So how did Mayweather did win the bout so decisively?

For starters, you have to remind yourself what is the criteria when judging a fight? I was amazed how many people tries to justify that Oscar should have won because he was the aggressor. Each judge should score each round based on Clean Punching, effective Aggression, ring Generalship, and defense with all four areas 25% each. After reviewing the bout three times to make sure that I am judging as fair as possible, I had Mayweather winning in all criteria for the majority of the fight. Without a doubt, the clean punching goes to Mayweather. He landed the cleaner shots, that most judges/commentators/viewers can see.

For effective aggression (not aggression), this is the area where most De La Hoya fans and Mayweather haters tries to justify that De La Hoya should have won because he was the aggressor. Mayweather clearly out boxed De La Hoya on the outside while locking his right hand to guard and protect from De La Hoya’s dominating left. Mayweather capitalized on De La Hoya and forced him to fight him with his weaker hand throughout the bout. De La Hoya was being aggressor but he was not effective. He came up empty on the outside and on the rare occasions when he did pinned Mayweather he was landing few, fouling, and missing shots. Mayweather’s offense consisting quick counters, single shots, quick left hooks, and one twos showed more effectiveness than De La Hoya’s flurries.

Now, ring Generalship is tricky because it is like a summary of all three criteria. If De La Hoya has any ground in the match, it will be in this area. Mayweather, for the most part, was in control after the early rounds and had De La Hoya following him and also landing at willing of precise landing accuracy. His movement also kept Oscar off balance and prevented De La Hoya from getting off his punches. However, De La Hoya was able to bag some early round when they are going back and forth and made some mid and late rounds close.

As for Defense, they both showed great defense with Mayweather having a better overall defense for he was able to neutralized Oscar left hand and quick escapes out of corners and ropes. All in all, I thought Mayweather won rather easily and if De La Hoya didn’t rough house Mayweather, he would have lost even worse.

Mayweather/De La Hoya: Boxing Blows It Again

By Matthew Hurley

In spite of the fact that the De La Hoya – Mayweather bout turned out to be a pretty good scrap that left even marginal boxing fans happy, the card itself begged the question, “why does boxing keep shooting itself in the gut?” This was an event that could have been used to showcase tons of new up-and-coming prospects on the under card. Instead pay per view buyers were cheated. Only two bouts, the rousing Rey Bautista – Sergio Medina junior featherweight fight and the pedestrian featherweight bout between Rocky Juarez and Jose Hernandez were offered to the buying public. On top of that small sundae, pay per view buyers were demanded upon to pony up ten dollars more than the usual $45.00. So you paid more and got less.

The strange thing is that the card was promoted by Golden Boy Promotions. Oscar and his company has a herd of terrific young prospects in their stable and instead of marching them out in front of the world’s stage, a stage boxing hasn’t had in quite some time, they opted not to.

Why? If Oscar is so keen on promoting the sport, why not use this opportunity to really grab the public by the balls and show them why boxing is still a viable mainstream sport. And it was on Cinco De Mayo to boot!

A lot was made of the idea that this fight would make or break boxing in the mainstream media. For whatever reason, sports analysts who cover multiple sports give no credence to the fact that while boxing may not be as popular in American culture as it once was it is still hugely popular within the Mexican and Puerto Rican populous, and overseas. Joe Calzaghe’s last fight against Peter Manfredo sold out a thirty thousand seat arena. A pretty good Irish fighter like John Duddy can still sell thousands of tickets at Madison Square Garden. Local fights in my neck of the woods, Boston, always gather terrific crowds of loyal fight fans. But if there isn’t a big fight every few months, or there isn’t a De La Hoya or a Mike Tyson to dominate sports headlines, the sport is either dead or fringe.

But those who run boxing, from promoters like Golden Boy Promotions to cable networks like HBO, which has consistently dropped the ball in recent years, are as much to blame. Constant mismatches and too many unworthy pay per views have weeded out the casual fan.

And then there is the UFC. Most hard-nosed boxing fans turn their noses up at Ultimate Fighting – and most of them have never really sat down and watched the sport. Regardless of what you think of the UFC, boxing promoters should use the UFC broadcasts as a template for their own. Basically the UFC is providing to its paying customers what boxing used to provide twenty years ago. If you pay $40 bucks for a UFC card you’re going to get upwards of five fights and all the fighters are the top contenders in their respective divisions.

Dana White, the UFC president, understood why boxing was floundering when he created the UFC. His plan was simple – and simple is always the best way to go. Put the best fighters in together and then load up the card with fights to keep the customer satisfied. White, to his great credit, even put potential pay per view events on free television (Spike TV) when previous pay per views were disappointments. Don King, Bob Arum and Oscar De La Hoya could learn from this guy. Ironically, White is just doing what King and Arum used to do.

“It was a huge fucking fight,” White said, in regards to De La Hoya and Mayweather. “But when you really break it down, everything I’ve said over the last six years is true. I take the blueprint of boxing as to what not to do. You’ve got to help grow this thing. Instead, the powers that be in boxing have reached their hand in, ripped the life out and stuck it into their pocket.”

“They live fight to fight, not thinking about the future. They build up one fight instead of building up a card. They should have been creating new stars off this fight. Oscar De La Hoya promoted the fight. He owns Golden Boy Promotions. Oscar should have all his guys fighting. They should have stacked this card. It’s your card, secure the future of your sport. But they don’t think that way.”

White’s point is well taken. But is it greed or just stupidity? Or do the powers that be feel that the boxing public will purchase any piece of shit they’re offered? One of the next pay per views will be Bernard Hopkins – Winky Wright which even fans of both fighters have to be saying to themselves, “my god, that’s going to be a snoozefest.” But if you want to watch it you’ll have to pay nearly $50.00 and, guaranteed, the under card will be terrible.

Sometimes I think boxing fans, and I’m firmly established within the club, are masochists. Why do we stand for this nonsense? And then when friends or the fella sitting next to you at the bar denigrates the sport in any way we leap to its defense when we know that it could be so much better.

I watched the De La Hoya – Mayweather fight with a close buddy, who is a huge UFC fan, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. But my friend, whose sports idol, as with me, is Thomas Hearns, kind of shrugged his shoulders when it was over.

“It ain’t like the old days,” he said, draining his bottle of beer.

I wanted to counter him with something like, “What about Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao?” But I didn’t because he’s one of those former boxing fans who just gave up. Sure, he’ll watch the fights with me or go to the arenas for a live card but the passion isn’t there anymore.

He’d rather watch the UFC.