Oscar De La Hoya: It’s the fighters who are killing the sport

Oscar De La Hoya has said the fighters are to blame for the poor health of boxing.

On his weekly ‘Clap Back Thursday’ social media segment, De La Hoya told his 1.2m followers on Instagram that he felt the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson spectacle was “scripted” adding that it was “a horrible fight… It was just awful.”

“It was wishful thinking for all those idiots who thought they were going to get Mike Tyson of the nineties come out and rip somebody’s head off,” De La Hoya said. 

De La Hoya, however, gave credit to Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano credit for putting on an “incredible, real fight” but he captioned his post, stating: “Boxing is d*ad, but who is to blame?” He tagged in Canelo, Mike Tyson and Jake Paul.

“Boxing has been in hibernation,” said the Hall of Fame fighter turned promoter. “It’s like a sleeping bear. Boxing has been the most popular sport since the beginning of time, lately it’s been [Floyd] Mayweather-[Conor] McGregor, who fought in the ring, not the Octagon, because boxing is king, but we have to get our shit together.

“Fighters are not daring to be great, and we are stuck accepting mediocre fights. Look, being a fighter and now a promoter knowing the ins and outs because I’m in it, I have to say it’s the fighters who are killing the sport. People try to blame the promoters, or the managers or the trainers. No, it’s the fighters. I was one, and I can tell you that if my camp urged me to fight someone and I wanted to fight somebody else, we were going to fight who I wanted to fight. 

“Fighters today don’t think they’re getting paid enough or they’re scared of taking an L. For example, back in the day Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward weren’t the most popular fighters and weren’t getting paid the most during their time, but we respect them today because they fought their hearts out. And came back for another day. The UFC fighters, they get paid peanuts, and they go out on their shields. The fight like motherfuckers. But in boxing, we know the outcome of the big fights these days before the fight even starts. Look at the Canelo fight?”

De La Hoya then lambasted Berlanga for celebrating going the distance with the Mexican icon, and continued, taking a further shot at his former fighter Canelo: “This is where we’re at, because it comes from the top. Look at the nineties, you had Prime Tyson, [Julio Cesar] Chavez, myself, [Felix] Trinidad, we were warriors. We fought everyone. We created sexy, mega fights that everyone looked forward to watching.

“In the 2000s, boxing had Mayweather and it became boring and defensive, for a decade… and most recently, we have Canelo, who is the most boring but most popular boxer today.”