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October 1999
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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WHAT WAS THAT?
GRAHAM HOUSTON reports from Las Vegas as the Golden Boy blows his chance to become a legend with a walkabout end to the bout with Trinidad |
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DE LA HOYA performed like a champion for the first nine rounds and had
Trinidad frustrated, but Tito just kept coming and the tactic paid off
- Get Big Pic Within
minutes of Oscar De La Hoya's close, arguable defeat against
Felix "Tito" Trinidad at Las Vegas on 18 September the great debate had
begun.
Many boxing writers seemed surprised - some even stunned - that the
judges had decided in favour of Puerto Rican Trinidad after 12
interesting but unspectacular rounds in a welterweight championship
match that never lived up to its Fight of the Millennium hype.
The discussion is likely to continue for weeks and even months, not
just about the verdict but also the strange late-rounds tactics of De La
Hoya, the Golden Boy from Los Angeles, who got on his bicycle after
building up an early advantage on points.
Veteran observers such as the respected Hugh McIlvanney of Britain's
Sunday Times were among many I spoke to at the Mandalay Bay casino
resort who were convinced that De La Hoya had done enough to win,
despite back-pedalling his way through the final few rounds.
The name of the game, such dissenters insisted, is to hit and not get
hit, and the arguments continued long into the night that De La Hoya had
done just that, in a sufficient number of rounds, to have earned the
decision.
But the judges thought otherwise. Glen Hamada, of Seattle, had the
fight a draw, 114-114, but Jerry Roth of Las Vegas and Bob Logist of
Belgium made Trinidad the winner by scores of 115-113 and 115-114
respectively.
De La Hoya's promoter, Bob Arum, described the decision as "akin to
madness". He was not, he said, impugning the integrity of the officials
but added: "I just don't know what the hell these judges are looking at
any more."
But Trinidad's promoter, Don King, crowed: "You didn't see a fight,
you saw a foot-race [in regard to De La Hoya's retreating] - and we won
the foot-race."
De La Hoya argued afterwards that he thought he was too far in front
to lose so decided to play it safe and keep out of trouble. "I thought I
had it in the bag, I really did," he said. "I wanted to box, not brawl,
and I felt I put on a good boxing performance, but I guess that wasn't
enough for the judges."
But boxing a smart fight and virtually taking flight are not the same
thing. De La Hoya was clever and quick in the first eight rounds, for
most of which he clearly outsmarted Trinidad. But then De La Hoya began
to fade. In the last three rounds he was merely seeking to avoid punches
while Trinidad chased him around the ring. The fans who had been
chanting "Oscar, Oscar" in the earlier rounds started to boo as the now
dishevelled-looking Golden Boy dodged this way and that. But he could
not avoid all the punches, finishing the fight with a bruised left eye
from where Trinidad's right-hand punches had made contact.
To me, from ringside, it seemed that De La Hoya simply ran out of
steam from the ninth round onwards after burning up energy with his
constant-movement strategy of the preceding eight rounds. The De La Hoya
left jab, stiff enough to bloody Trinidad's nose and have the Puerto
Rican's left eye closing by the middle rounds, became merely a defensive
flick in the fight's final stretch.
Had De La Hoya attempted to trade punches with the stronger Trinidad
at this stage there seems little doubt that he would have come off very
much second best and might even have been stopped. Survival, pure and
simple, became his strategic priority, despite the way De La Hoya and
his camp attempted to gloss over the unpalatable fact.
That said, I did not think De La Hoya deserved to lose his World
Boxing Council title. I had the fight dead-level, 114-114, but gave the
final four rounds to Trinidad, who was defending the International
Boxing Federation championship.
The fight was supposed to be the defining moment in the career of the
undefeated 26-year-olds, each facing his severest test. But each man
fell some way short of greatness: De La Hoya did not show the fortitude
or staying power we expect from acclaimed fighters while - at least
until the last third of the fight - Trinidad often seemed ill at ease
and even puzzled by his opponent's side-to-side movement. The general
consensus at the Mandalay Bay was that ringsiders Sugar Ray Leonard and
Thomas Hearns - who engaged in a truly classic welterweight title bout
in 1981 - would have knocked out either of them.
Rematch? Not necessarily. Don King said he and Trinidad will require
the lion's share of the revenue next time. "We ain't gonna take a back
seat for anybody!" King exclaimed. "In that case, there isn't gonna be a
rematch," Arum rejoined.
De La Hoya, now with a record of 31-1 (25 KOs), remains the
attraction in purely monetary terms - a film-star-handsome
Mexican-American with cultural crossover appeal. But Trinidad, who took
his record to 36 consecutive wins (30 KOs), now holds two world titles.
He also holds, debatable though it may have been, a win over De La Hoya.
If they fight again, one feels, it will be because De La Hoya's pride
demands it, and for no other reason.
Although De La Hoya beamed his way through the post-fight conference,
the reality had perhaps not yet sunk in. He can insist that he really
won the fight, and there are many who will agree with him, but the
record books will show otherwise.
De La Hoya will take a rest, spend time with his girlfriend and
family. The likely plan seems to be that Bob Arum will seek to get him
another title as soon as possible, with Spain's Javier Castillejo, the
WBC super welter champ, a likely opponent.
Asked where Trinidad will go for the big money if a De La Hoya rematch
cannot be made, Don King shouted: "We'll make the money. We'll fight
James Page [the World Boxing Association champ and a member of the King
stable], we'll fight Ike Quartey, we'll fight the new guy, Shane Mosley
[due to make his welterweight debut a week later - see page 31]. We'll
fight any of them - we don't care.
But De La Hoya's dominance as boxing's biggest non-heavyweight
attraction seems unlikely to be seriously affected. Lou DiBella,
vice-president of sports for cable TV colossus Home Box Office, said De
La Hoya's contract with the network will not be affected by the loss.
DiBella had De La Hoya winning by two points. "Trinidad quite honestly
isn't that much better off [in terms of being an attraction] than he was
going in to the fight," DiBella said.
Certainly this was far from the overwhelming victory that Trinidad had
predicted. His boast of a six-rounds knockout turned out to be merely
pre-fight rhetoric.
Trinidad did go forwards throughout, and he seemed to be the bigger
puncher. But De La Hoya appeared to be piling up points, his double
left-jab being especially effective.
De La Hoya had promised we would see something different from him, but
few could have anticipated so much movement from a fighter who only a
matter of months ago had been leading us to believe that he would be
going back to his old style as a forward-pressing puncher.
It was not thrilling to watch, but it was working. De La Hoya's jabs
and occasional bursts of punches - including some useful-looking
deliveries from his normally under-employed right hand - had Trinidad
looking vaguely confused and a little frustrated, as shown by an
after-the-bell jab in the seventh for which Tito was cautioned by
referee Mitch Halpern.
But there was no doubting the power of the Puerto Rican's punches when
he was able to make contact - starting with a right-hander in round two
- and he was a threat to De La Hoya throughout.
Trinidad showed a sound chin, with barely a trace of a wobble when De
La Hoya opened up. And Trinidad was clever at ducking under punches,
while he kept his hands up at all times so that De La Hoya could never
get a big, clear punch through to his opponent's chin.
The prospect of De La Hoya blasting Trinidad out diminished with each
round, but, after eight rounds, things were looking good for him. To
many of us at ringside, De La Hoya seemed to have an almost
insurmountable lead on points, and he has usually been able to finish
strongly. Not this time, though.
It was disappointing that De La Hoya did not dig down and let some
punches fly to try to make an impression in at least one of the last
three rounds. But I believe that he simply did not dare to gamble and
instead took his chances with the judges. His safety-first,
kill-the-clock method of boxing near the end of the fight was, I feel,
born of necessity.
Still, De La Hoya's trainer, Robert Alcazar, and Gil Clancy, the
veteran fight man brought on board as an adviser, seemed genuinely
shocked by the scoring, both believing that their man could not lose
unless it was by knockout. Clancy went further. "Even in the last few
rounds when he was moving away he made the guy look like an amateur,"
Clancy said of De La Hoya's performance. "But Trinidad took a better
punch than we thought he would."
Trinidad fought like the man who wanted to win in those last few
rounds, and it paid off. And he did what many thought was next to
impossible: he won a close decision over De La Hoya in Las Vegas.
US PRESS REACTION
WALLACE MATTHEWS (New York Post): "Trinidad fought his heart out for all
12 rounds. De La Hoya did not, and it cost him. He was like a guy
leading the marathon who decides to walk for the last three miles - and
then gripes when another guy catches up to him."
JERRY IZENBERG (Newark Star-Ledger): "As superb as Oscar was in the
first nine rounds, he was a winded cipher in the final three. Trinidad,
realizing he was in trouble, proved why he is a champion in his own
right. He fought like a man who desperately believed he needed a
knockout. Ironically, in so doing, he provided a margin of victory that
was a tribute to his heart but a lie to what should have been the
numbers."
GREG LOGAN (Newsday): "De La Hoya was a 115-113 winner on the Newsday
card, but after he gave away four of the last five rounds, who could
argue the official verdict?"
DOUG KRIKORIAN (Long Beach Press-Telegram): "De La Hoya might be the
Golden Boy, but he was the Good-Natured Boy against Trinidad,
frantically dancing around the ring as though he had been looking at too
many old tapes of Nureyev, building an early edge with his numbingly
boring evasive tactics, refusing to engage in any serious combat and
then enveloping himself in ignominy the final three rounds by going into
a full-scale, back-pedalling retreat that shaded the dark borders of
cowardice."
MICHAEL ROSENTHAL (Los Angeles Daily News): "All De La Hoya had to do
was continue to make Trinidad miss and counter with sharp combinations -
as he had done magnificently well in the first eight rounds - to win one
or two of the final rounds and the fight. Instead, he gave it all away,
a fact that could haunt De La Hoya the rest of his life."
MICHAEL KATZ (New York Daily News): "Had this been a 15-round bout, as
in vintage years, De La Hoya would not have had a chicken leg to stand
on."
RON BORGES (Boston Globe): "Appeasement is never a good idea in warfare
of any type, least of all in the kind of hand-to-hand combat De La Hoya
was involved in. It is dangerous because you may think you know the
score but you don't really know until the judges' cards are read. When
they were this time, they turned out to be an Agatha Christie mystery,
pieces of fiction with a surprise ending."
JON SARACENO (USA Today): "I thought De La Hoya won six of the first
eight rounds, but in the last four rounds, he looked like a stock car
limping around the track low on fuel as fatigue set in."
STEVE SPRINGER (Los Angeles Times): "This blot on De La Hoya's career
will never be erased. De La Hoya's place in history will never be
assured unless he can meet and beat Trinidad." |
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