Oscar De La Hoya retired today from boxing and the question begs will he do the smart thing and never come back or will he be like every other boxing in the history of mankind and make an ill advise return?
No need to beat around the bush it is over for Oscar. It has been over for a long time. Great boxer, Hall of Fame worthy and he has made the sport a ton of money, but when the skills go they go.
In reality he should have probably retired after the Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight where I thought he put in the best effort he could, but was beaten soundly. If you watch that last half of that fight it was obvious that the magic was gone.
I was one of the few that knew it would be a debacle when he fought Manny Pacquiao and what Oscar told Freddie Roach after the fight cemented the fact that even Oscar knew it was time to go. He simply said:
"I don't have it anymore"
To me Oscar will be remembered for three things.
1- Running from Felix Trinidad.
2- Carry the sport financially at a time when the heavyweight division is garage.
3- Never pulling the huge upset in a major fight.
Interesting legacy to say the least. I think the running from Trinidad will haunt him forever because that is the fight that he should have won. All his other defeats have been legit (unless you count him taking a dive for Bernard Hopkins), but he was at his peak and putting on a boxing clinic when he decided to run.
In the end the legacy of De La Hoya will be someone who was so close to so much more, but instead of embracing the moment he ran from it.
Hopefully unlike the Roy Jones' of the world he never comes back and embarrasses himself again. Oscar is a smart guy unlike a lot of these boxers and money isn't an issue so he should just fade away. I don't want to be writing an article a year from now about Oscar's comeback. That is something he definitely should run away from.
lol at running from Trinidad