Oscar De La Hoya is still angry over the way the heavily hyped Floyd Mayweather – Conor McGregor “Super Fight” hurt the sport of boxing, embarrassed it even. Though McGregor surprised many with his spirited effort, one that saw him, in his boxing debut, push an ageing Mayweather into the late rounds of what was actually a fun fight to watch, De La Hoya isn’t giving the MMA star much credit.
De La Hoya, speaking with ESPN, said Saturday night’s fight was hard to watch and that if Canelo Alvarez fought McGregor in a boxing ring, he would do away with him in a single round. Oscar also suggests Floyd carried McGregor; “letting him” have the successful bursts he enjoyed in the first four rounds.
Oscar is not alone in suggesting Mayweather purposely made the huge “Money Fight” a little bit tougher than it could have been so as to give the fans that tuned in a decent show, but is this line of thinking doing the gutsy Irish warrior a disservice? The debate will continue for some time.
Right now though, De La Hoya is putting the finishing touches on promoting the upcoming middleweight title clash between Canelo and Gennady Golovkin, the September 16 fight being a “real” fight; a real Super-Fight. Neither De La Hoya nor Tom Loeffler feel the Mayweather-McGregor fight will hurt the pay-per-view buys GGG-Canelo will get, as “real” boxing fans know they can expect a great one next month.
Regarding Saturday night’s fight, the pay-per-view numbers are not yet in but are expected to be tallied soon, and some optimistic people are saying the current pay-per-view record – of just over 4.4 million, held by Mayweather vs Pacquiao – could well be broken.
But De La Hoya has said he feels the GGG-Canelo Super-Fight will be the one to knock the 2015 “Fight Of The Century” off the top spot. That too seems overly optimistic, but one thing is clear : we have a genuine cant-miss fight to look forward to next month. On that everyone agrees.
Now that the circus (a wholly entertaining one, it must be said) has left town, the sport of boxing can get busy getting back to normal. And, as has been pointed out by many, the Triple-G Vs. Canelo fight is the perfect antidote to Mayweather-McGregor.
Can Canelo get the win, a stoppage win, or will GGG prove to be too big, too strong and too good for the Mexican star? It might be a pretty hefty amount of cash for fight fans to part with in such a short space of time – those who bought Mayweather-McGregor and will now purchase GGG-Canelo – but we boxing fans have shown deep pockets before now.
Such is the modern day cost of being a fight fan.