48-year-old Oscar de la Hoya says he wants to fight Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez

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‘The Golden Boy’ De La Hoya, now 48-years-old, wants to get his hands on his former fighter Canelo (56-1-2, 38 KOs) after he gets a couple of tune-ups under his belt against former UFC champions Vitor Belfort in September and Anderson Silva in early next year.

De La Hoya (39-6, 30 KOs) insists that his fight with former four-division world champion Canelo, 30, would be a “real fight.” That’s a little disturbing not only for Oscar but for the boxing fans that will potentially be shelling out $80 per household to purchase the fight on pay-per-view.

I mean, how much of a chance will De La Hoya have of beating Canelo after two exhibition fights against former UFC fighters Belfort and Anderson?

We just saw the 46-year-old Anderson Silva labor to an ugly eight-round split decision victory over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr last month on June 19th, and he looked terrible. Silva has no hand speed or power, and he would be easy pickings for De La Hoya or anyone that isn’t shot to pieces like Chavez Jr.

“You inspired me Mike [Tyson],” said former five-division world champion De La Hoya to the Tyson HotBoxin podcast. “Looking as good as you did against Roy [Jones Jr], just for coming back you inspired me. So, I said, ‘I want to do it too.’

“I want to do two of these fights and then, guess what? I want to do a real fight, a 12-round fight with either Floyd [Mayweather Jr] or Canelo,” said De La Hoya.

We don’t know whether Canelo will agree to entertain the idea of fighting De La Hoya. You’d have to assume that Canelo will reject this idea without even considering it.

There’s bad blood between Canelo and De La Hoya, and the Mexican star isn’t likely going to want to help his former promoter get a big payday at his expense.

A fight of that nature would hurt Canelo’s popularity, putting him in the same boat as Mayweather. We’ve seen how Floyd has taken the sport downhill with his exhibition matches against Logan Paul and Tenshin Nasukawa, as was his sanctioned boxing match against UFC fighter Conor McGregor.

Sadly, the McGregor fight was used by Mayweather to break Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record. Unbelievable of what is allowed in boxing. Picking out a UFC guy to break a long-standing boxing record. It’s frankly pathetic, showing how badly boxing needs to be regulated.

It’s doubtful that Canelo will want to stoop to that level just to get a nice payday. He doesn’t need to do that. If Canelo wants to make a lot of money by fighting an old guy, he can make huge cash against 39-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin, who is still somewhat active.

Oscar last fought in 2008 in an eighth-round stoppage loss to Manny Pacquiao. Just how much the 50ish De La Hoya has left of his skills at this point in his life is unknown.

Many boxing fans would agree that De La Hoya was already badly over-the-hill when he fought Pacquiao 13 years ago.

Going into that fight with Manny, De La Hoya had lost three out of his last six fights with one of the victories being a controversial 12 round decision over Felix Sturm.NEWS:   Jermall Charlo talks Canelo, Benavidez and Plant

In reality, De La Hoya had lost 4 out of his last 6 fights before facing Pacquiao in 2008. It stands to reason that if De La Hoya was a shot fighter in 2008, how will he look now with him nearing 50-years-old?

Source: Marca

Mexico Daily Post