Sorry, Oscar, you’re wrong

By Jeff Haney

Friday, May 2, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Dear Oscar De La Hoya,

You recently suggested that Las Vegas boxing judges are in a conspiracy against fighters with your company, Golden Boy Promotions.

According to a column in a Southern California newspaper forwarded to me by a respected boxing publicist (undoubtedly to elicit just this sort of reaction), you believe judges here are biased against you and other Golden Boy boxers, and that their bias is reflected on their scorecards.

As the publicist put it, “What a load of manure.”

I know what you’re thinking: Here comes the homer journalist blindly defending all things Vegas.

Wrong. Plenty about Las Vegas is worthy of criticism.

Too many of our politicians, for instance, are inept, behind bars, awaiting sentencing or some combination thereof.

Our public school system is in appalling shape.

Bosses at our city’s famed casino resorts, marketed as gambling joints where you can take your bankroll and try your best to beat the house, are in reality gutless wonders who will show you the door unless you’re a confirmed sucker.

Perhaps worst of all — certainly most dumbfounding of all — Donny and Marie are considered major entertainment headliners here. (Seriously. No, seriously.)

Now that I’ve established I’m not a knee-jerk Las Vegas apologist, allow me to say you were way out of line in criticizing our boxing judges for supposedly having it in for Golden Boy fighters.

At the very least, you failed to back up your contention with a logical, coherent argument.

The column in question made reference to three fights: Joe Calzaghe-Bernard Hopkins in April, Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez in March, and your loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May.

I have news for you, Oscar: The Golden Boy boxer lost each of the three fights. The judges got them right.

Calzaghe did more than enough to earn his 12-round decision against Golden Boy’s Hopkins in their light heavyweight title fight a couple of weeks ago. Hopkins moaned about the judges as well as the CompuBox punch trackers, his behavior coming as quite a surprise ... to anyone who had never seen or heard Bernard Hopkins before.

Marquez, the Golden Boy fighter, put on a good show but came up short against Pacquiao, who deserved his 12-round decision at Mandalay Bay. Camp Golden Boy tried to claim skulduggery to no avail, even within the insular world of boxing. Outside of the sweet science, of course, the protests received even less attention: Although he’s one of the game’s most talented fighters, most mainstream sports fans, if forced to speculate, would probably guess Juan Manuel Marquez is the jockey who just won the feature at Pimlico.

Then there was your bout — excuse me, your fight of the century — last Cinco de Mayo at the MGM Grand, in which Mayweather put on a clinic and should have won by a wider margin than the close split decision he scored.

Finally — and I’m not sure if “irony” is a strong enough word here — the worst judges’ decision in Las Vegas boxing in recent years actually came in favor of a Golden Boy fighter.

On the undercard of Marquez vs. Marco Antonio Barrera on March 17, 2007, Demetrius Hopkins, then in the Golden Boy stable, was awarded a lopsided unanimous decision against Steve Forbes. What a load of manure, indeed. By all rights, Forbes should have carried the scoring by somewhere between a little and a lot.

Coincidentally, Oscar, you fight Forbes on Saturday night in Carson, Calif., in a tuneup for a possible Mayweather rematch.

Don’t get me wrong, Oscar. Although your attack on the judges was misguided, I do respect you for speaking your mind.

The tendency of boxing figures to make remarks that are interesting or provocative, even to shoot their mouth off and say something goofy, is a big reason my appreciation for boxing continues to grow year after year.

By comparison, with the odd exception of a Josh Howard going one toke over the line, it’s virtually impossible to find athletes or coaches in other sports who say anything that’s not mind-numbingly boring or vapid to the point of insulting our intelligence. The reason is obvious: Honesty, being a straight shooter, could jeopardize that endorsement deal — you know, the one with a company that sells lousy beer or some other potent (albeit legal) drug. (Isn’t it nice how the major sports leagues view their fans based on TV commercials? We’re stone junkies who drive pickups.)

Give me boxing any day, where you can ask Bob Arum about his politics and hear him boom, “Of course I’m a liberal! I’m smart, aren’t I?”

Give me Bernard Hopkins when he’s in the mode of profane social prophet, letting loose with an obscenity-laced yet riveting sociological discourse on American vs. European culture as seen through the prism of sport, his screed by turns insightful and offensive.

Give me Ricky Hatton at a relaxed, low-key breakfast meeting, far from the hyped-up atmosphere of a boxing news conference, quietly holding forth on Mayweather. Sure, Mayweather’s a superb fighter — “but everybody thinks he’s a (jerk).” Except he didn’t say jerk.

Give me Wayne McCullough, who has more heart than anyone else in sports. More than two years after his head was bashed in for 10 rounds in his last pro fight, you can find McCullough still ranting about the ringside doctor he believes stopped the fight prematurely. His single-mindedness reassures us “one angry man” types that we’re fighting the good fight by continuing to rail against perceived injustices.

Likewise, Oscar, your candor is refreshing — especially considering you have had success with corporate benefactors yourself, landing watchmakers, airlines and the like as Golden Boy fight sponsors.

Good for you, man. Keep on keeping on.

If you really do have a problem with Las Vegas, feel free to try again. I’ll be glad to consider it. But this complaint about the judges won’t stand.

Like Bernard Hopkins at age 43, it has no legs.

Your greatest fan,

Jeff