By Michael Herron: I find it ironic that the past three fights for the Golden Boys: Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley, and Oscar De La Hoya, ended the way they did. Two of the Golden Boys shined most impressively while the other suffered an epic failure. Hopkins was picked to lose to the younger stronger Kelly Pavlik but put a beating on the kid. Mosley was supposed to lose to the bigger, stronger, nothing can hurt him Antonio Margarito and beat the illegal hand wrapping out of him. De La Hoya on the other hand was the only veteran favored to win; he had all the advantages in the world against little Manny Pacquiao and gets punched around the ring like a photo shopped drag queen..
So the question is how and why De La Hoya has a statue outside of Staples Center and Hopkins and Mosley do not? I would think the two consistent winners of the Golden Boy stable should be the ones with statues. In my blunt opinion, Hopkins win over Pavlik and Mosley’s win over Margarito are more impressive than any win Oscar ever had in his career. Additionally, there’s also this little issue of each of them holding victories over De La Hoya himself; but most alarming is the fact that De La Hoya has come up on the losing end of big fights way to often to deserve a pre-retirement victory statue! In my view, his last great win over a highly regarded opponent was over a decade ago versus Ike Quartey! That fight marks the end of a promising early career but begins a decade of mediocrity.
Before this turns into a kick Oscar while he’s down review I’ll end this observation by suggesting that maybe it’s symbolic that the statue of Oscar De La Hoya outside of Staples Center is made of Bronze. Perhaps someday in the city of Philadelphia or the township of Pomona a more precious metal will immortalize the careers of the true Golden Boys.
The Moral of the Story: Precious metal should be reserved for Boxing’s greatest winners not its popular losers.
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