Loss leaves De La Hoya fighting mad

By Ron Borges, 9/15/2003

LAS VEGAS -- Oscar De La Hoya stood at a podium in the MGM Grand Casino late Saturday night looking and sounding like an attorney who had just been mugged. He wore a dark blue business suit, dark tie, dark shirt, and a huge white bandage on the right side of his face that covered up a split along the edge of his eye. His right cheek was rubbed raw from the pounding it had taken from Shane Mosley's fists and head, but it wasn't as raw as the words that tumbled from his lips about all that had befallen him.

According to De La Hoya, there had just been a heist at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Three men with pencils had robbed him of his belts, the ones signifying he was World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association junior middleweight champion. Something had to be done. Justice had to be served.

"[Today] I will put a full investigation into what happened," De La Hoya threatened after learning he had lost a unanimous decision to Mosley on a night when all three judges awarded Mosley 115-113 victories while the broadcast team at HBO was calling the decision a robbery and commentator George Foreman was saying, "They scored the blood, not the fight."

An HBO underling polled a number of ringside writers and found five of the six had Mosley winning and a seventh had it a draw. Only one had De La Hoya ahead, and his card had only a two-point difference. The Globe agreed with the judges almost exactly, even with the two who had given Mosley the last five rounds.

That did not prevent HBO from calling the decision a threat to boxing's integrity (which seems to be an oxymoron in the extreme). It didn't prevent De La Hoya's promoter, Bob Arum, from threatening to retire from the sport that has made him a multi-millionaire because he is "tired" of such decisions, which might be a greater help to the sport than getting De La Hoya's defeat overturned.

"I just feel the decision should have gone to me," De La Hoya argued. "I let this go after the [Felix] Trinidad fight [which he also lost by a controversial decision], but I got a little tired of this. I have the resources to put the best lawyers on this. We'll see what happens." What is likely to happen is nothing. De La Hoya has tremendous power in boxing because he is its biggest drawing card, but Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Marc Ratner said, "There will be no protest. You can't protest a judge's decision. It's his opinion."

For De La Hoya to make a case of some sort of conspiracy will be near impossible to prove, especially when the fight was in Las Vegas. Vegas is a town that understands business and De La Hoya is the business of boxing these days. Hours before the fight, a casino executive said while riding in his Mercedes up The Strip "only Oscar could do this," a reference to the amazing buzz around the town all week about the fight and the fact that it had sold out so quickly that ringside seats were being scalped for $11,000 and $400 seats in the nosebleed district were being re-sold for $1,200.

So just who would be conspiring to take titles away from boxing's Golden Boy? That is what De La Hoya says he wants to get to the bottom of, and to make his point he pulled a sheet of paper from inside his suit jacket and began to read rows of figures.

"Punches landed 221 to 127," he said. "Jabs thrown 296 to 268. Jabs landed 106 to 33. Power punches thrown 320 to 228. Power punches connected 115 to 94. I landed nearly 100 [more] punches. I'm not doing this because I'm a sore loser. I'm doing this because if you see the final punch stats, you wonder."

Indeed you do, but about what? Those who watched the live fight had little question about who won. Some even had Mosley winning by a large margin, although that seemed a bit far-fetched. Their question was more with the validity of those stats than with the validity of De La Hoya's complaints.

But others, including those watching at home to the TV broadcast, saw it otherwise. Whether blinded by what they think they saw or colored by their vested interest in a continuation of De La Hoya's success, they concluded a fistic felony had been committed and De La Hoya was leading the accusations.

"We both fought hard," De La Hoya said. "This is nothing against Mosley. This is against boxing. We'll see what happens. We've seen in boxing over years and years and years a lot of bad decisions. It's time to put a stop to that for the good of boxing."

After saying he would retire if he lost to Mosley a second time, De La Hoya seemed stunned at the outcome. He had dominated through the first six rounds with double and triple jabs that prevented Mosley from closing the gap and getting into position where his superior hand speed could assert itself. But after being ripped to the body by several counter rights when he tried to continue throwing that jab, De La Hoya seemed to abandon that strategy and that's when his troubles began. "The body shots slowed him down, his jab," Mosley said. "After a while he was afraid to throw his jab because he knew I was coming with the right to the body. I think my power more than my speed won this fight."

Having said that, Mosley was willing to do what De La Hoya was not. He was willing to concede the closeness of the fight and, in fact, his surprise that it wasn't he who was at the podium feeling he'd been unfairly treated by Las Vegas judges notorious for scorecards that go where the future money lies, which in this case was De La Hoya.

"Oscar was moving more in this fight, but I felt a lot stronger," Mosley said. "I felt my punching was doing more damage than his was. I think the body shots weakened him. I'd be lying if I said I flat out won every round, though. I know some of the rounds were very close. Oscar is a Hall of Fame fighter. I'm just the person he can't get by. Sure it could have gone either way, but I feel I won the fight."

Obviously, the Golden Boy didn't share Mosley's assessment. He felt his pocket had been picked. He felt CompuBox's unofficial statistics bolstered his case. He felt he'd been robbed in a town that breaks everybody's heart if you stay there long enough.

Now he will put the full force of his reputation and his finances behind reversing that. He shouldn't count on anything coming out of that but a few more legal bills and a little more frustration. Oscar De La Hoya didn't lose Saturday night because of three mistaken or compromised judges. He lost because he stopped doing what he had to do to win. The judges didn't beat him. Too many punches to the rib cage did.