Oscar de la Hoya is a rock, he is an island

by SC on Sep 4, 2009 11:11 AM EDT in Features Comment 9 comments

Golden Boy promoter Oscar de la Hoya is a lone wolf trying to sell Mayweather-Marquez. The two fighters meet in Las Vegas on September 19.

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As promotion for Mayweather-Marquez reaches the final stages, and the fight still struggling to capture the public's attention, it seems that Golden Boy Promotions chief Oscar de la Hoya is the lone man fighting for the team.

Mayweather says Marquez is too small and not good enough. Marquez's trainer Nacho Beristain says that Juan Manuel has gotten too big, lost his speed, and can't beat Mayweather without it. Even the HBO cameras seem to depict Marquez as such an enormous underdog that it's gone past great story territory and into a state that leaves people wondering why they'd pay money to watch these two duke it out.

But Oscar, ever the salesman, keeps plugging away. The retired champion says he's backing Marquez -- his fighter -- 100% and believes he can knock Floyd out. He's about the only one (besides Marquez, of course).

The other day, I said this about Oscar and his attempts to promote:

[T]he only guy that's been on the record over and over about this being a competitive fight is Oscar de la Hoya, who always sounds kind of like he's putting you on, but now sounds like he's flat-out grinning and lying and trying to take your money for a weak fight.

Part of me still feels this way, and I think it's too late for anyone to "save" this fight's financial outlook. But I'm starting to admire just how fake-smilin', gung ho Oscar can keep pretending to be in the face of the ton of adversity that is surrounding this fight. It's like the man is a machine.

And furthermore, he's about the only guy that's done his job promoting, and it's not even his company serving as lead promoter. Everyone else has painted this as a mismatch; Oscar keeps telling us it's a good fight and that Marquez can win.

It might not get this fight's business moving, but if the returns come back as bad as many are expecting, no one can really blame Oscar de la Hoya. God knows he's stuck with this fight.

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Weak fight??Marquez is one of the best counterpunchers ever!! He’s a legend.He will be precise in his attack. Mayweather’s a defensive genius who always seems to slow the tempo of his opponents punch output.That’s why he’s 39-0.The styles will clash. Any TRUE boxing boxing fan is hyped for this fight.THIS IS GONNA BE A GREEEAT FIGHT!!

by killah27 on Sep 4, 2009 2:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I’m actually excited too, even though I think Marquez doesn’t have much more than a prayer. But I’m excited because I really love boxing. Ticket sales, PPV projections, total buzz around the fight — this was supposed to be one of the few fights we get every year that captures mainstream attention, and it’s been pretty rough out there past Mayweather and Brian Kenny yelling at each other on ESPN.

I do know that Marquez will go down swinging if he’s going to go down, and I don’t expect it will actually be boring, because JMM isn’t going to be content to get outpointed.

Bad Left Hook
"Well Howie, I think I'm going to stay outside and outjab him." -- Tex Cobb telling Howard Cosell how he would approach Larry Holmes

by SC on Sep 4, 2009 3:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I am really excited not only about this fight but about the whole card! I think the promoters are really dropping the ball by not promoting this as a night of good boxing instead of just one fight with the potential to be bad. I don’t think that this will be a bad fight (Marquez is smart enough to not to just come forward, and give PBF strange angles to deal with). John-Juarez is going to be sweet and Katsidis v. Escobedo could be a serious war. Just really mad that I can’t have fun in Vegas for this fight (stupid jury duty….).

by waldo47 on Sep 4, 2009 8:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

it’ll be exciting the same way that DLH-Money May was “exciting”. JMM will move forward put on a worthless attack with mayweather being defensive and blast JMM with accurate shots. the only difference here is that since JMM is too tiny and proven to be chinny at upper weight classes he will be KO’d by PBF sometime late in the fight.

The Dude Abides

by battle axe of doom on Sep 4, 2009 3:39 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

wil be hoping someow it doesn’t completely tank, but it’ll just be pretty ollow if Mayweather KOs him early, so opefully he can hang in there for a bit.

We're all given some sort of skill in life. Mine just happens to be beating up on people. (Sugar Ray Leonard)

by BrianBrock on Sep 4, 2009 4:29 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

ps

great title for the story

We're all given some sort of skill in life. Mine just happens to be beating up on people. (Sugar Ray Leonard)

by BrianBrock on Sep 4, 2009 4:32 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think the blame goes to Nacho

Scott, BLH is my favorite boxing blog and it’s clear you put a lot of time and thought into your posts. But in this case, I gotta disagree with your assessment on who isn’t properly promoting the fight.

I think Floyd’s doing his job. Audiences WANT fighters to be full of confidence (and in Floyd’s case arrogance) either because they’re fans of the fighter and love the swagger or they can’t stand the fighter and want to see him lose. Floyd was equally dismissive of Oscar and Ricky’s chances at beating him and that didn’t hurt interest in either fight. I think if Floyd came out overly respectful to JMM it would look and sound really weird and I don’t think audiences would even buy it. It’d look kinda pathetic and make the bout seem like an even bigger mismatch as if Floyd was overly defensive about beating up or bullying Marquez who has such little shot that Floyd has to come to his defense.

Of course, Oscar’s doing his job as JMM’s promoter as you pointed out. But I think it’s Nacho who’s doing the fight a disservice at least from a promotional point of view. A fighter and his camp are naturally going to be confident and even cocky before a fight. If Nacho’s comments are part of a strategy to try to psyche out Floyd that’s one thing, but from a promotional stand point there isn’t much worth in what he said in terms of getting folks psyched up. JMM’s already at a disadvantage when it comes to his limited English and therefore his inability to really promote the fight beyond his core Mexican fanbase. To really hit the mainstream they’ve gotta get out there and make people believe he has a chance. And when the legendary Nacho Beristain makes comments like he did, I think THAT’S what really killed any hope of marketing this as a competitive fight.

by soulrise on Sep 4, 2009 7:34 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs

I have small quibbles, though I don’t disagree with you necessarily. I think the big problem with how Floyd has promoted this fight is that he just plain said, “This guy is too small and not good enough,” which is kind of a problem when the minute the fight was signed, a sizable portion of the boxing audience said to themselves and one another, “Marquez is too small.” It’s not confidence; you are right that Floyd has done nothing different than usual, though. It’s not that I think he should be like, “Boy Marquez is a warrior, and it’s going to be tough.” You’re right, that’s not Floyd and it would sound strange. But he shouldn’t have picked the one major and very discouraging problem that people had with this fight from the get-go, IMO.

But as to the overall point, I agree 100% that it was Nacho that really put the nail in the coffin of this fight’s chance to sell. “Head games” or not, it was horrible promotion on his part and squashed any chance they had for a late surge of interest among not just diehards, but even the casual fans that do follow the news and talk out there.

Bad Left Hook
"Well Howie, I think I'm going to stay outside and outjab him." -- Tex Cobb telling Howard Cosell how he would approach Larry Holmes

by SC on Sep 4, 2009 9:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Both of you guys are right…. Nacho must have his head up his orifice to be saying the sort of things he’s been saying. Worst of all, if he says different stuff now it’ll just sound like horseshit. Floyd hasn’t helped matters, either. Zab has screwed the pooch twice. This has been a horrible promotion all around.

"This fight'll be the nastiest thing you'll ever see. I been sober for six weeks, and that makes me vicious."
-- Randall 'Tex' Cobb

by jrok on Sep 5, 2009 12:02 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs