What in the wide, wide world of fishnets and rehab stints is going on with Oscar De La Hoya?
Last week was especially cringey for those looking in on the world of “The Golden Boy”-- and that’s a huge statement for those familiar with the sometimes odd behavior and NSFW activities of the former six-division world champ and founder of Golden Boy Promotions.
Followers on social media were treated to a bizarre blast against former client Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
“Fuck you, talking all that shit,” De La Hoya said via social media video. “I’ll fucking knock your ass out...hahaha. I’m coming for your ass...hahaha.”
He then showed present tense clips of him working out, presumably for his still-programmed comeback exhibition on Triller this coming September.
“And that’s how you throw punches,” De La Hoya posted over the videos. “Balanced power and speed. Wait 12 more pounds and 2 more months.”
This was about a week after barging on to an Alvarez social media video comment section to snipe at the Mexican star.
“Please, this guy does everything wrong,” Oscar commented underneath a clip where Alvarez is teaching a young fighter boxing fundamentals, “head up when he throws hooks, on his heels, flat footed. What else? He avoids @twincharlo.”
That catty remark brought Alvarez, himself, to the comment section to fire off a terse “do me a favor and go fuck yourself,” followed by emojis of what appeared to be kitchen utensils, possibly a not-so-veiled reference to the scandal of a few years back where De La Hoya was reportedly being blackmailed over a video of two instagram girls violating him (pleasuring him?) in the rear end with kitchen utensils (If this dig was indeed intentional, many, many kudos to Canelo for the wicked burn, btw).
De La Hoya’s recent onslaught against Canelo, who broke free from his promotional grasp in a much-publicized legal fracas last year, may be a delayed reaction to a YouTube interview with the current 3-belt super middleweight champ posted in late April. In that candid face-to-face with interviewer Graham Bensinger, Alvarez said that De La Hoya “is not Golden Boy” and that Oscar “doesn't do anything in Golden Boy. He's worried about drinking, and being involved in other things. The decisions are made by other people.”
After obsessing on Canelo, Oscar wasn’t done making a spectacle of himself on social media. He would then pick up on his other boxing obsession-- Floyd Mayweather, who had just registered a financial hit with his exhibition against YouTuber Logan Paul a few days earlier.
Speaking to Triller bossman, Ryan Kavanaugh, an energized De La Hoya claimed to be “a thousand percent” ready for his return to the ring and very close to making an actual real, non-exhibition return to action, with Mayweather in mind as an opponent.
“Let me get like two fights in, you know, and then I can fucking call out Mayweather, you watch,” De La Hoya declared. “In a fucking real fight, bro. I'm gonna call him out, you watch.”
Then, a day or two later, giving bizarre closure to a bizarre week of self-aggrandizement/self-indulgence/self-immolation, Oscar’s mondo bizarro “Oscar de la Hoya’s KO Entertainment Presents Bally’s Fight Night” boxing show made its debut.
Airing June 9 on the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned Stadium digital network, the show billed itself as “Boxing 2.0” and boasted of being the bridge to bringing boxing back to the younger generation.
In the press release announcing the project-- released to media just under an hour before the actual broadcast-- the stated goal was to make this the “initial step toward reimagining the presentation, and developing the gamification, of combat sports.”
In practice, though, the whole thing was a hot mess...with De La Hoya’s face and name all over it.
The show featured low-level, club-level bouts with Mortal Combat-style health bars at the top of the screen, displaying “vital statistics (like strikes and damage dealt) in real time” for each fighter, “monitored by data scientists,” whatever that means.
Of course, none of his made sense in actual practice as the health meter power bars served no purpose in the actual judging of the bouts and didn’t seem tied to any firm reasoning as to what they actually represented.
Even more vexing than the empty Mortal Combat feel was the maddening “Bam! Pow! Kapow!” cartoon graphics that popped up on screen when one of the fighters landed an especially hard punch. Aside from being just flat-out dumb, they served to obscure the action-- right when things may have been heating up.
All in all, from the silly “innovative” features to the cheesy, fake party vibe of the show, this Oscar De La Hoya product was beyond awful. It looked like something conjured up in a fever dream after a powdered bender involving kitchen utensil butt play by someone really, really desperate for money (not that De La Hoya would know anything about any of that, ahem).
Done independently of his Golden Boy affiliation, like his Triller comeback deal, this show inadvertently added credence to the Oscar is not Golden Boy criticism. It also added credence to the theory that Oscar’s ego has gotten the best of him and that his drive to push himself back into the spotlight (and/or make a quick buck off his name) may not at all be endorsed (or tolerated) by the execs actually running Golden Boy at the moment.
One can’t help but wonder what those fighters represented by Oscar and Golden Boy at the moment must be thinking about the insane amount of energy and time Oscar is devoting to promoting himself and his hair-brained get-rich-quick endeavors.
Engaging, entertaining 20-something fighters like Ryan Garcia, Vergil Ortiz Jr., and Jaime Munguia might benefit more from promoter De La Hoya popping his fishnets to push them to the stars than washed up 48-year-old De La Hoya desperately grasping at relevance and quick money scores.
But Oscar’s gonna Oscar. Expect some sort of embarrassing fall soon.
Got something for Magno? Send it here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com