Ring Observer Boxing by Scoop Malinowski
By Scoop Malinowski
Oscar De La Hoya made a stunning revelation last week.
Oscar revealed for the first time that he and Floyd Mayweather Jr. had a rematch clause in their original contract back in 2007, the clause was intact for one year.. however Floyd retired and intentionally let the rematch clause lapse.
Oscar said: “Well, this is something that the world doesn’t know and I’m gonna actually say it now. We had a rematch for a year, contractually. Guess what Floyd did? He retired for a year and one day. The contract expired.”
If you go back in time, you should be able to remember that the Oscar fight was the most important and valuable fight of Mayweather’s career. It’s the fight that elevated him to the superstardom level and into a pay per view attraction. Before the Oscar fight, Maywweather was still a B side and much smaller attraction with only minor leverage to call the shots.
In a rather dull fight that looked like a sparring session, Floyd barely won a split decision vs Oscar but it was not a thrilling fight. It was more of a strange duel because Oscar entered the ring in mediocre, soft condition and he curiously abandoned his most important punch late in the fight – his left jab.
If the fight was on the level, it would make logical sense for Floyd to have eagerly pursued the Oscar rematch and that second massive payday – Floyd earned about $25m for the Oscar fight, by far his best payday. But Floyd flat out ducked fighting the sport’s no. 1 star a second time and instead opted to fight Ricky Hatton in December 2007 and then after the Oscar rematch clause expired in May 2008, Floyd set up a Juan Manuel Marquez fight in September 2008.
One logical conclusion for Floyd ducking the Oscar rematch is he knew Oscar played soft with him in the first fight but was going to go all out in the rematch and knowing he would lose the rematch, Floyd and his advisor Al Haymon decided to duck it.
Another twist in this drama is the fact that Golden Boy/Oscar De La Hoya actually co-promoted the Floyd vs Hatton fight. This fact would add credence to the suspicion that Oscar played soft with Floyd in order to then promote Floyd in his following fight – and thus profiting from the arranged loss. That’s smart business by Oscar, similar to James J Braddock losing the heavyweight title to Joe Louis but then earning a cut from all of Louis’s fights as champion.
So it’s very interesting that Oscar suddenly revealed this details about Mayweather ducking him in the contract rematch. Oscar didn’t just do this without any purpose or intention. He could be taunting or pressuring Floyd about something private.
I can think of no other reason that Floyd would duck the Oscar rematch other than because he knew Oscar gave him a fraud gift win and he KNEW he could not win the rematch.
