In a pre-fight interview, Oscar De La Hoya, when contemplating his day at the office on May 3, asserted "this is the most important moment of my life". Hyperbole? Perhaps. Sound recognition of reality...absolutely! To his credit, Oscar knew not to take Steve Forbes lightly a la Felix Sturm in 2004. Four years ago, De La Hoya, a living legend even then, looked over-matched against the trim, tenacious German fighter Felix Sturm. Oscar appeared soft-bellied and slow-footed that fateful night. Sturm certainly possesses an arsenal of formidable weaponry; however, multiple world champion ODLH would have prevailed more easily had he not openly looked ahead to the upcoming Hopkins mega-fight. Proper conditioning combined with a superior skillset should have carried the day with relative ease for Oscar. But the Golden Boy was clearly out of shape and this resulted in a highly debatable decision. After the controversial dust settled, boxing's biggest draw realized that to remain numero uno he must never repeat the mistakes of the Sturm debacle. http://fightbeat.com/article_detail.php?AT=635
"However, this observation could explain why De La Hoya has never ko'd an opponent after the 8th round. " this is not true.
Oba Carr was after 8th if I'm not mistaken. And Oscar's first title fight (opponent escapes me) was a late TKO as well.
"only Pacquiao fights effectively in reverse" :: Look man, I love Pac, but thats hilarious. With regards to the fight, DLH showed an impressive jab, but one of Floyd's forte is the pull counter which is what he's gonna be doing to negate that jab. While DLH's flurries for the most part were blocked/slipped, they did put Forbes in a defensive mode and negated any inside work by Forbes. Floyd is going to use his legs more or clinch on the inside instead of standing in the pocket the way Forbes did so DLH will not have the same opportunity to rack up points by flurrying. I fully expect Floyd to just use his legs and potshot his way to another UD, negating DLH's jab with the pull counter.
KO or TKO, same difference. i think the guy was trying to say that oscar never stopped anyone after the 8th.
It's not the same. KO you don't make the 10 count. TKO the fight is stopped. For example. Roy Jones was KO'd by Glen Johnson. Roy didn't make the 30-count :: Cupey
true, but i guess here's my question. what's the purpose of emphasizing that one guy can't KO another guy for a full 10 count? shit, if that's the case, when was the last time felix trinidad knocked out a guy after the 8th?
he probably said it because he heard Jim Lampley say it. The difference being, Lampley was forced to correct himself on air a few seconds later after he was fed better information.
Someone should keep a running tally on the number of corrections the crew has to make of Lampley...and the number of corrections that could/should be made but aren't. Now there's some compubox #'s I'd be interested in.
Jake:bears: In fact they brought up the Vargas fight immediately after that comment. The writer somewhat touched on the key point in all of this. In the first fight, Oscar was competitive/winning almost every round in which his jab was a priority. He just fought like someone who was afraid of tiring and didn't put enough energy into it. Floyd is no Tommy Hearns, but he still can hurt Oscar, unlike Forbes and I'd be worried about the sharp counters Forbes was landing early and often when it comes to predicting the outcome of a Floyd rematch.
