Published by on May 6th, 2008
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Charles Jay: Oscar Did Okay, Considering….
By Charles Jay…..
Okay, well Oscar is done with his workout. Now it’s on to the business at hand. After he gets over what may be a fractured orbital bone, he will begin preparations for the rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Sure it was a sparring session. We all understood that. And it was aptly described that way by the announcers. Not that the fix was in, but Steve Forbes acted obediently enough. Anyone who allowed his trainer (Roger Mayweather) to leave the camp because he was ordered to by Mayweather Jr. (the nephew) was aware of exactly what the program was.
Knowing all this, HBO did it anyway. That shows you how much they are at Oscar’s mercy. I would admit, I have to give them some kudos – they didn’t restrict Larry Merchant from voicing his own opinion, which was that there didn’t seem to be enough justification for a rematch with Mayweather, which would, in turn, mean that there wasn’t enough justification for the tuneup against Forbes, even though it is the pay-per-view arm of HBO that would be carrying that rematch.
Even though he took Mayweather to a split decision last May, De La Hoya could probably not go right to the rematch without rehabilitating himself just a little bit. he had to do a selling job. Boxing’s greatest salesman is selling himself again.
And he didn’t do as good a job as he could have. He wanted to knock Forbes out, to make a “statement,” as they say a lot these days, and that certainly would have gotten more people excited about Oscar’s chances the second time around with Floyd. But that’s the way it goes – you want a guy that is no danger whatsoever, and you’re liable to wind up with a guy whose first instinct is to think survival, not reckless abandon. You rarely can have it both ways.
I know that there is a tendency to think De La Hoya was disappointing in his performance, if not his effort. But I would ask people to consider that when a fighter goes into the ring once a year for about three years, he’s going to normally struggle with his timing. From that perspective I thought De La Hoya showed a remarkable ability to maintain some sharpness, and I don’t think observers are willing to give him credit for that. Granted, Emanuel Steward may have been given to hyperbole just a little, in suggesting that Oscar had “turned the clock back ten years,” but he did nothing at all to embarrass himself.
No, the embarrassment was in the fact that HBO couldn’t even put itself in a position to make excuses about the lackluster quality of Saturday’s fight, both on paper and in the ring.
