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Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya and Showtime Sports chief Stephen Espinoza don't appear to be great pals these days, which should come as no real surprise now that De La Hoya has begun taking his fighters, such as Canelo Alvarez and Bernard Hopkins, back to rival HBO.
Tonight, De La Hoya and Espinoza put out some solid snarky tweets during Showtime's broadcast of a Warriors Boxing/Al Haymon triple-header from Chicago. De La Hoya started off the festivities by saying he'd be spending his Saturday night watching a show that ended forever last Sunday night:
Who's going to watch @BoardwalkEmpire on @HBO love that show. #MySaturdayNight
— Oscar De La Hoya (@OscarDeLaHoya) November 2, 2014
While Oscar is surely a busy man who may well have missed the finale of Boardwalk Empire, there's really no mistaking what this tweet was about. For a wealthy businessman, De La Hoya has a habit of throwing out really petty shots like this when the mood strikes him, which is probably not terribly wise in his position, but at the same time, is kind of admirable. It's not PR fluff, at least.
Espinoza shot back a little remark:
You love the show but yet you don't know it ended last week? "@OscarDeLaHoya: Who's going to watch @BoardwalkEmpire on @HBO love that show."
— Stephen Espinoza (@StephenEspinoza) November 2, 2014
De La Hoya ignored this, but after a break, came back to Twitter later in the night:
Flipping my channels and thought I was watching ESPN fights.
— Oscar De La Hoya (@OscarDeLaHoya) November 2, 2014
De La Hoya and Espinoza have not exactly seen eye-to-eye ever since Richard Schaefer was forced out -- officially resigned -- at Golden Boy earlier this year, which led to a few more front office defections from GBP. Espinoza, a former lawyer for Golden Boy, took the Showtime job when Ken Hershman left for HBO, and the connection between himself and his former employers clearly played a vital role in Golden Boy moving their entire company to Showtime, eventually.
With Schaefer's departure, though, that has changed. De La Hoya says he'll work with all networks and all promoters, but taking shots at tonight's fights doesn't exactly make that claim sound sincere.
Showtime and Golden Boy will be working together for a pair of shows in December, on December 12 and 13.