Oscar De La Hoya says he’s interested in avenging his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr from 2007 and he would like to take that fight over a match against Canelo Alvarez if he comes out of retirement in 2021.
The former six-division world champion De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KOs) says it still bothers him having lost to Mayweather many years ago, and he’d like to get revenge if possible against him.
De La Hoya lost a 12 round split decision to Mayweather on May 5, 2007, in a fight that brought in over 2 million pay-per-view buys. Will we see a rematch on the boxing schedule in 2021?
That fight shattered the PPV record. The 2.4 million buys the De La Hoya vs. Mayweather PPV mark lasted until Floyd broke it in ‘The Fight of the Century’ against Manny Pacquiao in 2015. That fight pulled in 4.6 million PPV buys.
De La Hoya targeting Mayweather
“I’ve always prided myself in fighting the very best. Why go after the second-best? Why not go after the guy [Mayweather] that beat him?” said Oscar De La Hoya to Fighthub when asked if he’d be interested in facing Canelo Alvarez when or if he comes back in 2021.
“Why not go after Mayweather, for instance, in a revenge fight? That’s something very intriguing. We’ll see how I feel and go from there.”
“I would definitely think about it, but my eye is on the bigger prize [Mayweather rematch],” said De La Hoya when asked if he’d consider facing Canelo next year.
De La Hoya recently said he wanted to fight middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin next year, but there’s no interest on the Kazakh fighter’s part.
If De La Hoya could get a rematch with Mayweather, even if it’s an exhibition match, it would make a lot of money. Mayweather is scheduled to face YouTuber Logan Paul on February 22nd on PPV.
Oscar still bothered about his loss
“Of course, for any fight that you might have lost that was close or whatever, it’s always going to be a thorn,” De La Hoya said about him still feeling bothered about his loss to Mayweather from 2007.
“The way I feel now and the way I’m training and you know the way things are unfolding, it could be very interesting.
“That’s the next phase of training,” Oscar said when asked if he’s been sparring yet. “That’s why I want to make my decision very carefully and think about it after I spar. So it’s going to happen very soon.
It’s understandable why De L Hoya would be upset about the defeat to Mayweather because he was beating him. In the first half of the fight, De La Hoya was out-boxing Mayweather from the outside.
Unfortunately for De La Hoya, he lost his cool and started slugging with Mayweather after taking a couple of hard shots in the seventh.
That was a big mistake on De La Hoya’s part, as once he started trying to brawl with Mayweather, he was picked apart by him. In hindsight, if De La Hoya had kept his focus and continued to box, he would have won a decision.