Viva De La Hoya!
Since that night in Las Vegas, I’ve been hopelessly drawn to the most brutal of sports. Foolishly, many believe that boxing isn’t an athletic competition but a showcase of barbaric corruption that brings the masses to that primitive place in their souls and feeds their lust for bloodsport.
But boxing is the closest any athletic contest comes to purity. It is a nasty reflection of life, rife with pain and failure, greed and hate, dishonesty and corruption. For the worthy, it offers pride and grace, honor and nobility, but the worthy are few and far between.
All my love for soccer, football, baseball, and basketball does not change the fact that boxing has always been my favorite. The sport has declined in recent years but it remains a beautiful display of determination, durability, and power that demands constant training of both the body and the mind. Miss a workout, skip some roadwork, waste some time partying and chasing wool, and you’ll be exposed in the ring.
Unlike team sports, where ineffectiveness and laziness are rewarded by a teammate picking up the slack, all a fighter has is himself, and no matter how badly he’s losing, he’s still in the game. If a team is down by three touchdowns with 3 minutes to go, they need four, Peyton Manning, and some help from God. But in boxing, a fighter can lose 9 straight rounds but only needs one punch, that knockout blow, to shift the tide.
How can you not love that? The footwork, the dips, slips, bumps, and pushes… The sweet science is poetry in motion and there’s nothing better in sport than watching two professionals with a true understanding of their trade putting on a show. Tonight’s bout between Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. may be the sweetest of them all.
Since the date was announced months ago, I’ve begged and begged my father to get tickets and about a month and a half ago, he came through – just like he always does. Since then, the wait for May 5 has been almost too much to bear but now that the day is finally here and we’re in Vegas yet again, things feel a bit, I don’t know, bittersweet. Less than six hours remain before my dad and I are thirteen rows away from watching the greatest fight twenty years. But less than six hours also remain before the last great fight of a dying sport is under way. As excited as I am for things to get started, I can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness in knowing that by the time midnight rolls around, the sport of boxing that I have grown to know and love – a sport that has provided some of the great memories of my life – will be gone.
Heart Prediction: de la Hoya by TKO
Head Prediction: Mayweather in a decision
8 Comments
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I am a jaded, sarcastic girl prone to unreasonable fits of rage. This site is my outlet. I am not classy, nice, or fair. It's best you know that up front.
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Don’t worry Flash. You and your dad still have the Raiders to bond over
this fight can’t possibly live up to the hype but it’ll still be great. def gonna be the last great one for a long long time but boxing will be back. dont sweat it.
looks like you nailed the call. going in i thought mayweather was gonna put dlh on his ass. he never came close. if i’m mayweather, i’m a little more humble after that experience not destroying down a guy that has been retired for 5 years. but judging on the post fight comments, it doesn’t look like he knows what being humble is all about.
Technically he was retired for less than a year.
As for being humble, that isn’t a trait often found in boxing, I don’t think that is a bad thing. Besides, 90% of the stuff out of Mayweather’s mouth is an act. He’s admitted it before.
You were spot on with you decision prediction. Congrats! I grew up watching boxing and still remember watching Marvelous Marvin get robbed against Leonard (debatable, obviously, but old opinions die hard). Was going to watch this fight, but after reading Mayweather’s pre-fight babbling and thinking it over, it seems that my enjoyment of boxing is more or less dead. Glad to read that de la Hoya put on a show and fought to the end. Ironically, reports have it that Mayweather’s own father gave the fight to Oscar. Oh well, now they can have a multimillion dollar rematch and we can hear Mayweather jabbering all over again. I miss Marvelous Marvin…
There is no humility in boxing, Regan. That’s part of what makes it so great. There’s no room for hurt feelings and sensitive moments. A big part of boxing is the show that the boxers put on outside the ring. Mayweather is doing exactly what he’s supposed to do.
that was frustrating to watch. I never realized how much of a defensive fighter Mayweather is. Why doesn’t he wanna take advantage of that quickness and throw combinations?
mayweather’s hit and run style seemed totally chicken shit to me.