15.05.06 – By Izyaslav “Slava” Koza: It was during the last round of the bout between Oscar De La Hoya and Ricardo Mayorga, that my real thoughts on this “mega-fight” would be justified. As Mayorga took the knee after the first knockdown, and De La Hoya went to the nearside neutral corner, the camera got a good view of the look in Mayorga’s eyes. To me, that look spelled out exactly what I believed was the reasoning behind the “bad boy” Mayorga build up, and the noble hero, De La Hoya’s return to the ring.
If any of you have seen the film “Hidalgo,” with Viggo Mortensen, there is one moment early on, where Mortensen’s friend, the Indian chief, enters the rodeo arena. Dressed in the traditional garb of the “evil savage,” the chief, who in the film is actually a good man, walks into view of the crowd to a chorus of loud boos. He walks proudly to his fate, not showing any instinctive human emotion, like say being upset, because that destroys the people’s desire to hate on the bad guy, and thereby pay for him to earn his bread. The whole overview of the moment in the film is to elicit a feeling of revulsion towards the promoters who degrade decent people into playing roles not suited for their nature.
Some of us would believe those days of exploitation for entertainment were a thing of the cruel past, but as you can no doubt tell I think, they have just taken on a different form. There are still people who are surprised by the sympathy a guy like Mike Tyson elicits, seeing as he went to jail, and is widely considered a tormented human being. In my opinion, Tyson had to act like a monster outside the ring because he has nothing left to give inside it, against the likes of Lewis, and going as far down as Kevin McBride. To me, he had to make people buy into the idea that he was still a crazy, deranged monster, something that as we saw after those bouts, was simply not true. He had to act against his better instincts, he had to pretend like he got pleasure from being the beast, fans thought he was, and he made himself out to be. It was just as demeaning as the actions of prostitute pretending to get pleasure from a sexual act, just so she has enough money to not go away and die. In Tyson’s case, of course, he brought that state unto himself, which is why his is not as tragic as Mayorga’s.
Ricardo Mayorga was a victim of circumstance, and unlike Tyson, he wasn’t a sound technical boxer, but rather an above average brawler due to chin and toughness. He intimidated Vernon Forrest for 15 rounds, which while no small task, was, as anyone can see, not an act of brilliant tactical boxing. The rest, I feel, was media whoring, for the sake of money, nothing more. For what it’s worth, I respect Mayorga’s character, in swallowing his pride, and doing what he had to do in order to earn money. Not many men have enough courage to sacrifice personal pride like that. However, that also does not mean fighters who stick to their morals and not sell out for media attention are any less admirable its just that admiration is for something totally different.
This brings us full circle to Oscar De La Hoya, a fighter, who as those who have read my articles know, I respect for his talent and desire to fight the very best. However, even though I respect those elements of his career, his self promoted image, of heroic bully beater, makes me think of Vince McMahon and the WWF, almost every time. This “fight” was really a matter of finding a way to build up Mayorga’s bad boy image, in order to make fans forget about the fact that Oscar is an infinitely better technical boxer, and Mayorga was simply a crude slugger, with a Tyson like attitude (and thereby following) outside the ring.
De La Hoya fought many guys of that nature, in between his “real” mega fights who were simply too overmatched on paper, but had enough of a local following. When he beat Gatti, he basically beat a nice guy version of Mayorga. Since Gatti did not have that extra negativity outside the ring, fans saw it exactly for what it was a showcase tune up against an overmatched opponent and Oscar’s personality and character took a hit. Well, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice….and well you know the rest.
Rather then making a serious financial risk, something not true when there is a real good opponent, the Golden Boy found the perfect victim to fight and beat in the person of heel Mayorga. This time, as with all his previous Gatti-type shut outs, the fans won’t say, “How could Oscar?” but rather, “Oscar the hero shut the true bullies mouth.”
There in lies my problem with, “yippee! Oscar the hero, and Mayorga the bad guy got a beating.” The true bully is the one who picks on somebody weaker then themselves, the true bully is the one who takes a fight he knows he will win, the true bully is the one who will gloat and taunt the victim after the bout is over. Oscar said it himself in the post fight interview with Merchant, that it was the plan all along. Now, after the fight, we don’t hear the true reasoning, we will hear how cool Oscar was in not making fun of Mayorga and how he is this true professional and so on. I say bunk! and even though I like Oscar, I, as a boxing fan, don’t appreciate him picking on a mismatched fighter and making it seem like something different.
I felt sorry for Mayorga because he knew the only chance he had of getting yet another fight like this after Tito was playing the bad guy. Anybody who thinks all that talk was to get at Oscar, is deluding themselves, seeing as it was obviously for Mayorga’s sake to maybe give him enough rage to land the lucky shot, or not wimp out on the beating he knew he would get. It was also to make people pay attention, since if there would be no trash talking, then fans would start discussing the technical mismatch. I bought into it, like everybody else, and laughed at Mayorga’s silly antics, but inside, I felt stupid, and felt even dumber when I saw Mayorga stare helplessly at Oscar. Not only was he the bigger fighter, but he was also in such a position that, he could come out of this as the hero, while Mayorga, the true hero in my eyes, seeing as he took a fight (for money of course) he knew he had little chance of winning and still tried to the very end.
This is why after the fight ended, the first thing I wished for was that Oscar gets what is coming to him (in my personal biased hopes from Roman Karmazin) for being a bully. Second, that fans don’t spit in Mayorga’s direction, for being the sacrificial lamb to their media hero.
Ironically, even if fans see through this crappy charade, they will still buy the next Oscar PPV, only this time, in the hopes of seeing the real bad guy get knocked out. That is precisely what I hoped Mayorga would do, but unfortunately, I hoped too much.