For one night, boxing seemed to matter again. I watched the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight with a group of ten people. Men, women, and children, half of which never cared about boxing before May 5th. The fight even led off SportsCenter on the same day as The Kentucky Derby and a first round Game 7 of the NBA Playoffs. It was heavily hyped and it seemed to work judging by the sample audience that I viewed the fight with. The fight ended up delivering on the “superfight” hype and produced an apropos dramatic ending.
Oscar De La Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr
Floyd Mayweather Jr brought his villainous tactics to another level when he entered the ring wearing the colors of the Mexican flag and a sombrero, an homage to his uncle and trainer who did the same when he was known as the Mexican Assassin during his days as a boxer. It was made even better given that it was Cinco de Mayo and his opponent was Oscar De La Hoya. Even 50 Cent was sporting a Mexican-themed bulletproof vest.
The crowd was juiced from the beginning, something that is rare yet awesome for any type of fight. De La Hoya made a deliberate attempt at working Mayweather’s body in the first round but it didn’t work out for him. Floyd was too quick and Oscar was left open for counters, something that Floyd did all night. Oscar dropped the body attack strategy in the second round and it was a good idea. Floyd was still counter punching but Oscar was pressing the action and forcing the fight on Mayweather, firing off rallies that looked impressive and pleased the crowd but were relatively ineffective in relation to Oscar’s connection rate.
It was easy to see that De La Hoya was the bigger man in the fight. He weighed in at the 154 pound limit the day prior and certainly put on more weight prior to the fight. Mayweather weighed in at 150 pounds and said that he lost two more pounds prior to getting into the ring. It should be noted that Mayweather is willing to say just about anything he can think of to make himself sound like the greatest thing since Nacho Cheese Doritos. Every now and then Oscar De La Hoya would land some good shots on Mayweather Jr but it was clear his size advantage wasn’t going to translate into a knockout. This fight was going to be about winning rounds.
In the 4th round, De La Hoya had Mayweather Jr on the ropes and fired off about eight consecutive left hooks to the body. Floyd was trying to hold Oscar but the Golden Boy was able to keep firing off shots with his free hand while Floyd could do nothing but take it. It was a great sequence but a little disappointing that it seemed to have no effect on the Pretty Boy.
Floyd was showing no signs of fatigue in the middle rounds as Oscar continued to will himself through another high volume round of punches. Mayweather did an excellent job of defending in this fight. He kept his chin tucked and his right hand high to protect against Oscar’s strong left hook. Floyd also did a fine job of leaning back at the waist to avoid Oscar’s punches. Despite being two inches shorter than De La Hoya, Mayweather actually had about a two inch reach advantage. Combine Mayweather’s quickness and athleticism with De La Hoya’s short arms and you have found yourself a man that is difficult to hit.
De La Hoya landed 122 punches out of 587 thrown for a 21% connection rate. Mayweather, on the other hand, landed 43% of his punches going 207 for 481. Mayweather landed 85 more punches despite throwing 100 less punches than De La Hoya. The one time Mayweather was easy to hit for De La Hoya was during the final ten seconds of the 12th round. It’s always fun to see, especially in a big fight like this one, both men unload their tanks when the ticker sounds for the last ten seconds of the round. The crowd erupted and Mayweather seemed to be on his way to another victory. That was until the first scorecard was read.
Judge Tom Kaczmarek scored the bout 115-113 for De La Hoya. The crowd went wild. Judge Chuck Giampa gave the score of 116-112 for Mayweather. The crowd wasn’t so happy with that one. This leads to the dramatic announcement of the third score from Michael Buffer. It is Judge Jerry Roth’s card and he scores it 115-113 for the new WBC Light Middleweight champion….Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Some people thought this fight wasn’t as close as the official split decision would lead you to believe. When scoring a fight, four things come into play. Ring Generalship was all De La Hoya. He controlled the pace of the ring and forced the action. Floyd was doing nothing to create a fight. Defense was all Mayweather. See the punch stats above. The final two are also the most important, Clean Punching and Effective Aggressiveness. Mayweather landed clean punches all night but De La Hoya was the aggressor and his punches caused the Pretty Boy to bleed from the nose.
Mayweather said this is his last fight and that he will retire. No one believes him and I doubt he believes it himself. He’s just looking for a hug. De La Hoya’s camp is already crying foul over the scoring of the final round, enough means to set up a second superfight between these two. Mayweather made over $10 million for this fight and I’m sure that will be more than enough to lure him out of “retirement.”
Other Fights From The Week
– It kind of seemed like the boxing world shut down outside of De La Hoya/Mayweather. The undercard of The World Awaits saw Rey Bautista earn a WBO Super Bantamweight Title shot with a unanimous decision over Sergio Medina. Bautista put Medina down twice in the 12 round fight.
– Also on the undercard, Rocky Juarez won a unanimous decision over Jose Hernandez. The fight was originally set for ten rounds but some belt was made up for no good reason other than to make the fight two rounds longer. This led to my party host’s dad becoming upset with me but I’ll spare the details. Juarez put Hernandez down in the second round but backed off afterwards for a dull finish. It was so dull that they let Larry Merchant talk to Floyd Mayweather Sr in the crowd over two full rounds of the fight.
Larry Merchant’s Stupid Quote of the Night
“Tonight may be Cinco de Mayo, but it is turning into May-weather.”
