Oscar De La Hoya – the Golden Boy of the Boxing Ring

Dubbed the Golden Boy after his Olympic win at the Barcelona games in 1992, Oscar De La Hoya never expected to grow up to be a boxer. In fact, his earliest boxing memory, a match set up between Oscar and one of his cousins by his older brother, sent six-year-old De La Hoya home crying after his opponent landed a blow to his nose. Born in 1972 and the son of Mexican immigrants, Oscar De La Hoya grew up in the ghettos of East Los Angeles. After some violent run-ins, including being injured in a drive-by shooting at 11 and being stabbed at 13, Oscar’s family urged him to take up boxing as a form of self-defense. After all, the De La Hoyas had boxing in their blood. Oscar’s grandfather was a amateur boxer, and his father had been a professional fighter in Mexico. After his family began pushing him to try the sport, Oscar De La Hoya agreed to take up boxing at a Los Angeles gym.

Once Oscar De La Hoya started boxing, he discovered that he had a talent for the sport, thanks in particular to his devastating left hook. De La Hoya won the National Junior Olympic championship two years in a row, in 1988 and 1999. The following year, he won the Goodwill Games as the youngest competitor at the tournament.

As the United States pinned their Olympic boxing hopes on the young Oscar De La Hoya, things took a turn for the worse in his personal life. His mother, not even 40 years old, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Although tempted to give up the sport in his grief, Oscar promised his mother on her deathbed that he would win the Olympic gold medal for her. De La Hoya was as good as his word, knocking out four opponents to take the gold. One of these was Marco Rudolph, who had beaten him for the World Championship the year before. Oscar De La Hoya, the only American to win a gold medal in the entire Barcelona games, remembered his mother by carrying a Mexican as well as an American flag to receive his medal. He later said that winning the gold for his mother was the most important thing he had ever done.

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The Barcelona Olympics was the last competition of Oscar De La Hoya’s amateur career. Based on his stunning record – 223 wins, only five losses, and more than 150 knock outs – De La Hoya was offered a million dollar boxing contract. The Golden Boy’s career soared quickly as De La Hoya seized the WBO junior lightweight and the WBO lightweight title in the same year. In 1995, De La Hoya took the IBF lightweight title by KO, and in 1996 dominated the fight for the WBC super-lightweight title with a four round KO. By the time De La Hoya was scheduled to battle Felix Trinidad for the WBC welterweight belt, he had racked up a winning streak of 31 straight bouts.

Perhaps that was one reason why De La Hoya was so stunned when judges awarded the title to Trinidad. Oscar later said that Trinidad had never really hurt him during the fight, and he thought he had won easily. He regained the belt briefly when Trinidad moved to a different weight class, but lost it again when Shane Mosley knocked him out in a fight in June 2000. After these double defeats, Oscar De La Hoya lost his direction for a while. Having followed in his father’s footsteps, he now emulated his mother, who had been a professional singer. Oscar De La Hoya exchanged his boxing gloves for a singer’s microphone, and created an album that was nominated for a Grammy award.

It wasn’t until March of 2001 that De La Hoya entered the ring again, with a knock out win against Arturo Gatti in the fifth round. As well as refocusing himself on boxing, Oscar De La Hoya was also settling down personally. Always a ladies’ man and with two children from previous relationships, De La Hoya married Millie Corretjer, a Puerto Rican singer. The couple now has a child of their own.

Oscar De La Hoya is one of boxing’s most popular competitors, with his own Spanish boxing show appearing on the HBO cable network. Defeated in only four fights in his professional career, and having held titles in six weight classes, De La Hoya has two major goals he wants to achieve before retirement. He wants revenge against Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosely, who beat him twice, and he wants to win the belt in a seventh division. Oscar De La Hoya says he still believes he has not reached the pinnacle of his boxing game, and will continue to push himself to be the best fighter he can be.