Along with calling “all promoters to come together” so as to make super-fights “like all the time,” Oscar De La Hoya is looking at staging a mega-card for Super Bowl weekend next year. Speaking with Fighthyoe, De La Hoya says he is excited about the idea of putting together a big “Super Bowl of boxing” event to be staged at the newly opened Sphere arena in Las Vegas.
Oscar’s idea is to have Ryan Garcia fight either Teofimo Lopez or the winner of the Devin Haney-Regis Prograis fight. And, De La Hoya’s vision would see Shakur Stevenson fight William Zepeda on the card, with Jaime Munguia against Sergiy Derevyanchenko (in a rematch) or even Edgar Berlanga, and with Kid Auston versus JoJo Diaz to open the big card.
“I was at the Sphere opening, and I cannot f*****g tell you how amazing it is,” De La Hoya said to the Fighthype channel. “So imagine Super Bowl weekend, the Super Bowl of boxing – Ryan Garcia-Teofimo Lopez, or even Devin Haney, the winner with Prograis. Then, on the undercard, you have Shakur versus William Zepeda. And then, to top it all off, you have Jaime Munguia versus Derevyanchenko or Berlanga. And then, to open it up, you have Kid Austin versus JoJo Diaz. The Super Bowl of boxing. Let’s do this!”
Hey, it sure sounds like a great idea. Kind of a throwback to the stacked cards Don King (love him or hate him) put on on a regular basis in the 1980s and 1990s. But how much cash would be needed for De La Hoya and Co to be able to pull this one off? To say nothing of all things falling just right (Garcia, for example, has to win his December comeback fight with Oscar Duarte without a hitch if he is to fight again as soon as February, while Haney and Prograis will also be fighting their fight in December and would perhaps struggle to return as soon as two months later).
But at least De La Hoya is thinking big; at least he is thinking about the fans and giving us what we want. When was the last time we saw a stacked card of the magnitude De La Hoya is looking at making? More power to Oscar if he can get these kinds of great cards done, I say. But again, it will take a whole lot of hard work, hard cash, and plenty of luck to get this ‘Super Bowl of boxing’ done.
