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The Golden Boy Robbed? Oscar De La Hoya feels gypped. What else is new? - Page 3

© Roy Pickering

Due to its ability to occasionally thrill me, time and time again I disregard the tendency of boxing to disappoint or flat out infuriate me. The most recent example of the latter was the title fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley. As I watched it on pay per view, I felt that the Golden Boy had earned himself a rather routine victory. Sugar Shane had simply done too little, and gone about it too late. I was not especially impressed by Oscar's performance. I did not believe he had ever really hurt Mosley. It was my opinion that Oscar fought in a very cautious manner in order to best keep himself out of harm's way while dictating the pace of the fight. Mosley seemed to be landing harder and more effective punches whenever he did get around to throwing them. But he too was overly cautious, especially in the first half of the fight, and also rather one dimensional, throwing haymakers whenever he saw an opportunity rather than being active and using his fists to swing the pace of the fight in his own favor. As champion, even though he fought mostly going backwards, I felt that De La Hoya had done enough to emerge victorious. As challenger, it seemed to me that Sugar Shane had not done nearly enough to deserve either his nickname or the championship belts at stake. Throw in factors that shouldn't have mattered but unfortunately often do influence decisions made in professional prize fights, such as the Golden Boy's large fan base, and I fully expected that the judges' decision would match my expectations.

In the days since the fight, I have pondered why my expectations were not met. Was I heavily influenced by the opinionated commentary of HBO's broadcast team? They were all convinced that it had been an easy victory for Oscar and expressed shock and disgust at the official verdict. George Foreman went so far as to exclaim that a conspiracy had taken place, but Big George says a lot of stuff that is best to be taken with a grain of salt, which is no doubt part of his appeal. Shane Mosley's trainer/father certainly seemed to believe that his son/fighter was behind in the fight, for he did one heck of a job convincing Shane of this between rounds. Sugar appeared to be in a mild state of disbelief at the ruling in his favor, though he claimed that this was because he thought Oscar's popularity in Vegas would be his undoing. De La Hoya was clearly mystified, though by no means rendered speechless by the decision against him. I fully expected him to call out for Johnnie Cochran in his post-fight interview. Viewers were made well aware throughout the contest of punch stat numbers that were heavily in favor of Oscar. He was throwing considerably more punches and landing them at a higher percentage than was his adversary. It seems logical that this would lead to him being declared the winner. Then again, boxing judges do have not have access to these statistics. They must use the naked eye to determine which man is more of a "ring general", and which one is utilizing a superior degree of "effective aggressiveness". Apparently they were more impressed by Mosley moving forward and throwing what appeared to be harder punches that seemed to sometimes hurt his opponent, than they were with De La Hoya moving backwards, throwing and landing many more punches that appeared to be softer and less damaging to his opponent. Several newspaper columnists have agreed with the verdict reached in Las Vegas, so if indeed Oscar De La Hoya is the victim of a conspiracy, it would have to be an awfully large one extending well beyond sin city.

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