Oscar De La Hoya’s Vegas 10-count

By Jeff Haney

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Oscar De La Hoya announced his retirement from boxing at an emotional news conference Tuesday in Los Angeles, but reverberations were felt in Las Vegas, where De La Hoya competed in some of his most memorable fights.

“People loved Oscar and they loved to watch him fight,” said Richard Sturm, MGM Mirage Sports and Entertainment president. “He was very much like a rock star in his own right as well as a fantastic fighter. People loved to watch him in the ring.

“It didn’t matter who Oscar was fighting. No matter who he was fighting, the arenas would be full. You can’t say that about very many boxers. He was truly one of a kind. He will be missed.”

De La Hoya, 36, retires with a record of 39-6, including 30 knockouts. He won 10 world titles in six weight classes.

De La Hoya will remain an integral part of boxing as one of the sport’s leading promoters. He formed his company, Golden Boy Promotions, in 2001. “Boxing is in his blood,” Sturm said. “I see him promoting for a long time to come and I see him being very successful at it.”

Here is a 10-count of De La Hoya’s most significant bouts in Las Vegas:

1. Against Rafael Ruelas

When: May 6, 1995, at Caesars Palace

Result: De La Hoya TKO, second round

The skinny: By the time referee Richard Steele stepped in to halt the lightweight world championship fight, De La Hoya, in his third year as a pro, had established himself as a force among boxing’s elite.

2. Against Julio Cesar Chavez

When: June 7, 1996, at Caesars Palace

Result: De La Hoya TKO, fourth round

The skinny:In a culturally charged fight against a wildly popular longtime Mexican champion, De La Hoya entered the ring wearing a robe that featured the American stars and stripes on one half and the colors of the Mexican flag on the other half. Then he took Chavez apart. A jab by De La Hoya opened a cut above Chavez’s left eyebrow early in the fight and blood was streaming down Chavez’s face by the end, stunning the pro-Chavez crowd of 15,283 at Caesars. De La Hoya won a rematch two years later.

3. Against Pernell Whitaker

When: April 12, 1997, at Thomas & Mack Center

Result: De La Hoya unanimous decision

The skinny: De La Hoya won the world welterweight championship for the first time, sweeping the judges’ score cards in a bout that was devilishly difficult to score, even by Pernell Whitaker standards. Whitaker’s camp tried to claim a West Coast bias favored De La Hoya in the scoring. Oddly, later in his career De La Hoya would complain that Las Vegas judges were biased against him.

4. Against Ike Quartey

When: Feb. 13, 1999, at Thomas & Mack Center

Result: De La Hoya split decision

The skinny: De La Hoya sealed the victory in a brutal fight by winning the final three rounds. The stirring late rally was capped by a 12th-round knockdown of Quartey via a vicious left hook that stands as one of the Golden Boy’s career highlights. The sixth round, in which each fighter scored a knockdown, was honored as boxing’s best round of the year by The Ring (a magazine De La Hoya would later buy).

5. Against Felix Trinidad

When: Sept. 18, 1999, at Mandalay Bay

Result: Trinidad majority decision

The skinny: Trinidad handed De La Hoya his first defeat in this clash of unbeaten welterweights. De La Hoya was roundly criticized for playing it safe in the final three rounds, dancing away from Trinidad rather than engaging his opponent in a brawl. De La Hoya said he believed he had done enough in the first nine rounds to clinch a victory on the score cards — and he might have had a point. De La Hoya threw a total of 648 punches to Trinidad’s 462, and he out-landed Trinidad 263 to 166.

6. Against Fernando Vargas

When: Sept. 14, 2002, at Mandalay Bay

Result: De La Hoya TKO, 11th round

The skinny: De La Hoya called the 11th-round knockdown, again by left hook, “very satisfying,” after Vargas had tried to bait him with some ugly prefight trash talk. Afterward Bob Arum, De La Hoya’s promoter at the time, characterized it as the fighter’s best performance of his career.

7. Against Shane Mosley

When: Sept. 13, 2003, at MGM Grand

Result: Mosley unanimous decision

The skinny: A close, exciting fight was marred by controversy when Arum and De La Hoya questioned the judging in the aftermath. Years later, during the BALCO scandal, allegations emerged that Mosley might have knowingly used steroids in his preparation for the fight.

8. Against Bernard Hopkins

When: Sept. 18, 2004, at MGM Grand

Result: Hopkins KO, ninth round

The skinny: In a world middleweight title bout, Hopkins scored a knockout by winding up and delivering a left hook to De La Hoya’s liver — a sequence that’s even painful to write. “I heard him go, ‘Aaaggghhh!’ ” Hopkins said. He has since formed a lucrative alliance with De La Hoya on the Golden Boy Promotions team.

9. Against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

When: May 5, 2007, at MGM Grand

Result: Mayweather split decision

The skinny: De La Hoya earned an estimated $43 million for a fight that generated a record 2.4 million pay-per-view buys and a live gate exceeding $18 million.

10. Against Manny Pacquiao

When: Dec. 6, 2008, at MGM Grand

Result: Pacquiao RTD, eighth round

The skinny: Weakening substantially as the fight progressed, De La Hoya had little left at the end. He approached Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer and De La Hoya’s former trainer, in the ring afterward. De La Hoya told Roach that he simply “didn’t have it anymore.”