The press conference is over, the fight is confirmed, and Oscar de la Hoya is backing off of "final fight" talk, which means that his December 6 clash with pound-for-pound ruler Manny Pacquiao will not be his final fight.
I'd try to be more "reporter"-like about this and speculate what it could mean, but I think we're all big enough boys (or ladies, if there are any) to know that when a fighter suddenly stops talking about retiring, he's going to fight on.
I have to assume that if he lost to Pacquiao, he'd reconsider, because who does he fight then? He'd have lost to a little guy that he should have beaten and would have annihilated in his prime years, which would mean he's so far past those prime years that he shouldn't fight guys his own size.
Though, of course, that probably wouldn't be the plan anyway. There's talk of Ricky Hatton at Wembley Stadium again, which would be a great event. There's talk of Mayweather coming out of his fake retirement to fight Oscar next year (which will happen, if you ask me). And there's talk of Margarito (which will never happen).
As an aside, I know I bust on Yahoo! Sports columnist Kevin Iole a lot, but it's never meant to be personal. As I've said before, sometimes I totally agree with him. This is one of those times. Mr. Iole has been steadfastly against this fight since the beginning, and while I've fluttered back and forth about liking it or not, I've drawn my own conclusion that the fight is just not what I really want to see from either of them. Iole is still hard on the case, though. He won't let this one go. I dig his conviction in this instance.