Heavy favorite Oscar De La Hoya planning for knockout

It's a familiar refrain for Oscar De La Hoya.

Talk to him in advance of any of his fights in recent years and the World Boxing Council welterweight champ inevitably remarks that he's changing, evolving, improving. It sounds good, of course, but then he doesn't follow through in the ring.

Now he's at it again. Only this time, with Oba Carr waiting for him May 22 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, he says he means it.

"I've been losing respect every single fight for the last three or four years," he said Thursday during a conference call from his training camp at Big Bear, Calif. "But that's not going to be the case anymore. I'm going to fight for myself from now on and that means you're going to see me be far more aggressive."

De La Hoya is 30-0 with 24 knockouts but went the distance last time out, Feb. 13 vs. Ike Quartey, and, arguably, has had to go the distance too many times in recent years. But if what he's saying proves true, taking De La Hoya and the under on the round-proposition bet against Carr looks like the thing to do.

As it is, he's a minus 900 favorite to defeat Carr and the round prop is at 10.

Carr is 48-2-1 with 28 KOs.

"I'm very confident I will (knock him out)," De La Hoya said. "I'm a slugger and I'm a smart fighter. My game is fighting and not being scared of guys and just trying to box them."

He admits he didn't do all he could and that he was far too standoffish against Quartey.

"We were playing a chess game up there," he said. "I was waiting for him to attack and he never did. I wasn't into the fight and my mind wasn't there.

"But that fight woke me up. Actually, three or four weeks ago I woke up and asked myself why am I boxing guys like Quartey and Pernell Whitaker?

"It made me realize the passion that I had for boxing was going away."

So he made at least two decisions: First, to lessen the impact his ever-changing trainers have on him; and second, to get away from side issues -- such as co-promoting fights with Top Rank's Bob Arum -- and stick with what he does best.

"I don't want to get involved in that stuff," he said of pulling out of his co-promotional agreement with Arum, which both men spoke highly of earlier this year. "It was so confusing. I thought it was a good thing because other people thought it was a good thing, but I don't want to deal with it anymore. There were too many headaches."

Likewise, he says he is minimizing his trainers' responsibilities and will fight "on instinct" rather than as programmed. Robert Alcazar and Gil Clancy are his current trainers, but they're merely the latest in a long line of associates who have worked with the Golden Boy.

"I was always adjusting to my trainers instead of having them adjust to me," he said. "They were always trying to change me into a boxer, but that's not my style. I should be going in there and destroying guys instead of worrying about boxing them and trying not to get hit.

"I was far too tactical when I fought Quartey and I'll no longer be satisfied unless I'm knocking out my opponents."

Along those lines, much of the conference call time was devoted to De La Hoya speculating as to whether Felix Trinidad will accept a $10 million offer -- to be split in some manner with promoter Don King -- for a Sept. 18 fight at Mandalay Bay. Supposedly, that offer will only be on the table for another week or so and if Trinidad ultimately rejects it De La Hoya will give Quartey a rematch.

"If Trinidad doesn't accept, he's scared of me," De La Hoya said. "We all know his people are scared. If he doesn't take it, he'll never get another opportunity like this."

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