Oscar: Golden Boy back on the fast track

With Oscar's name recently popping up in media a lot for saying he's seriously considering a comeback to boxing, everybody wants to know if he's for real. Long story short, he says he is indeed thinking about returning to the ring, and that he isn't just saying it for the publicity because, well, he doesn't need any extra publicity. Here are a few notable highlights of the Q&A session.

DLH on his potential comeback:

It's 50-50. That's basically it. I'm going to start sparring next week. Then I'm going to sit down with my family, with my kids, and see how they feel about it. I'll take it from there.

DLH on Premier Boxing Champions impact on his company and other promoters:

We're in this for the long haul. We now have several champions and we're building more. After the whole fiasco with Al Haymon, all we need is time. We know how to build champions. I'm talking about Danny Garcia, Abner Mares, Leo Santa Cruz. We built Deontay Wilder from zero. It's just a matter of time for us to build champions. And we have time.

With everything that took place with Al Haymon, about a year ago, we anticipated it would take us two or three years to get back on track. We're ahead of the game. We have the guys you mentioned (Alvarez, Matthysse, Lemieux, WBC lightweight champ Jorge Linares, et al.). We're back to doing championship fights. We're on the verge of doing the second biggest fight in the history of the sport with Canelo-(Miguel) Cotto.

Is Bob Arum going to survive? Yes. Is Golden Boy going to survive? Yes. We're getting stronger and stronger. I can't speak for other promoters who are feeling the impact (of PBC). As far as we're concerned, we're doing better than ever. We were sidetracked for a few months but we're back on the fast track.

Golden Boy has been able to put on some great fights this year, with Matthysse-Provodinkov and Canelo-Kirkland already Fight of the Year candidates. They also have Canelo-Cotto in the works which should also be a huge success. The real question is whether or not they can sustain this with Al Haymon racking up all the talent and the networks (including PBC recently replacing Golden Boy on Fox Sports 1). Obviously Oscar is optimistic about where Golden Boy is headed and says they are reverting back to a grassroots approach to rebuild the company. But because Golden Boy's stable has been heavily depleted of big-name fighters, it will be critically important for them to maneuver their remaining chess pieces very carefully. Time will tell...