Top Rank's Bob Arum and his Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya took a couple of shots at each other tonight, and Arum even brought up a possible return to the ring for De La Hoya in the middle of all the sniping.
Here's what Arum said about Oscar, from Ryan Burton of BoxingScene.com:
"Look I don't want to take a shot at Oscar but he spends more time Tweeting than promoting. ... I would rather make a fight between Chavez and De La Hoya (than Chavez vs Canelo Alvarez). That would be a huge fight given that Oscar beat Chavez Sr twice when he was towards the end of his career. Now it is kind of reversed and I think Chavez Jr. would be very interested in fighting Oscar."
This idea has been brought up in the past, but more often when Oscar De La Hoya was a (semi) active fighter toward the end of his career. De La Hoya hasn't fought since his December 2008 thrashing at the hands of Manny Pacquiao, and I continue to believe that he should stay retired. If he's able to put his active career behind him, that's good for him personally -- he's going to turn 39 in February, hasn't fought in three years, and hasn't been a full-time fighter in seven years.
A fight between Oscar and Chavez Jr would, indeed, do business. There's no doubt about that. But it's a fraudulent idea -- as if somehow Chavez, who is a much bigger man than Oscar, beating up a retired De La Hoya avenges Oscar's two wins over Junior's dad (or as Max Kellerman might say repeatedly to the point of it becoming weird, "his daddy"). Yes, Chavez Sr was on the downslide when Oscar defeated him, and that's a sore point for some, but the Hall of Famer was 96-1-1 and held the WBC junior welterweight title the first time they fought in 1996, too. And he was 100-2-2 and still an active fighter when they rematched in 1998. The situations are not the same. Oscar is not "towards the end of his career." He's a completely retired fighter.
On Twitter, where De La Hoya often sends out profoundly absurd messages to the world, Oscar offered these two comments about Arum:
(1) I'm not going to criticize a man who is on his way out of boxing.but I will criticize him for not wanting to make PAC vs mayweather (2) Bob arum is older now and not thinking right so I respect that.but what I don't respect is he's trying to take boxing down with his sinking
The "I respect that" bit reminds me of the "with all due respect" scene from Talladega Nights:
Keep in mind that De La Hoya's "not criticizing" Arum has recently included retweets from some of the greater minds in the boxing fanbase, including people calling Arum "a moron," "the biggest dick to boxing," "a punk," and "a piece of shit."
But I guess technically Oscar didn't say those things.
The Arum vs De La Hoya beef is really not going to get any better. Again, the two sides say they're OK to work together, but they're not working together, and nobody should really expect them to do so any time soon. Boxing is a sport often dominated by old beefs and grudges more than any single fighter or promoter, and Arum and De La Hoya parted ways about as amicably as Arum and Floyd Mayweather Jr did, plus, Oscar then went into business, beat the odds, and became Arum's legit No. 1 competitor. There are still wounds here, and the two pick at them constantly.