08.05.07 – By Tony Liang, photo by Naoki Fukuda: I just wanted to start off by stating that I was very impressed with both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya’s performance. Both fighters came to fight in tremendous shape and were very determined to win. Both fighter came into fight with logical game plans and were determined to make it their fight. It was also the first time I got to witness De La Hoya using rough house and dirty tactics to hurt his opponent. Even though Oscar fell short on his biggest fight of his career, he did prove to the world that he still got what it takes to compete with the current p4p king pin by his relentless pressure and throwing hurtful punches from opening bell to the final bell.
Now before you guys bash me for calling De La Hoya dirty, during rare successes to pin Floyd on the inside, Oscar seized almost every opportunity to clinch with one hand and hit with the other (foul #3) starting from round one.
The second type foul that I saw De La Hoya used occurred during his flurries when he had Mayweather pinned for a brief period and unload some wild shots which included some fist, forearm, and elbows (foul #8). Now to the causal boxing fans they might think that Oscar should have won or even up to what Mayweather did on the outside but there is no way that the judges does not see the fouls or score as winning rounds for De La Hoya.
Now I don’t know if De La Hoya intended to do all those fouls but it was suggested on 24/7 that Freddie Roache and De La Hoya wanted to make this bout a rough one for Mayweather. Even with the fouls, I had Mayweather winning eight rounds to four same as Chuck Giampa of 116-112. However 115-113 is still reasonable to me and anything closer will be being very generous to De La Hoya, in my opinion. So how did Mayweather did win the bout so decisively?
For starters, you have to remind yourself what is the criteria when judging a fight? I was amazed how many people tries to justify that Oscar should have won because he was the aggressor. Each judge should score each round based on Clean Punching, effective Aggression, ring Generalship, and defense with all four areas 25% each. After reviewing the bout three times to make sure that I am judging as fair as possible, I had Mayweather winning in all criteria for the majority of the fight. Without a doubt, the clean punching goes to Mayweather. He landed the cleaner shots, that most judges/commentators/viewers can see.
For effective aggression (not aggression), this is the area where most De La Hoya fans and Mayweather haters tries to justify that De La Hoya should have won because he was the aggressor. Mayweather clearly out boxed De La Hoya on the outside while locking his right hand to guard and protect from De La Hoya’s dominating left. Mayweather capitalized on De La Hoya and forced him to fight him with his weaker hand throughout the bout. De La Hoya was being aggressor but he was not effective. He came up empty on the outside and on the rare occasions when he did pinned Mayweather he was landing few, fouling, and missing shots. Mayweather’s offense consisting quick counters, single shots, quick left hooks, and one twos showed more effectiveness than De La Hoya’s flurries.
Now, ring Generalship is tricky because it is like a summary of all three criteria. If De La Hoya has any ground in the match, it will be in this area. Mayweather, for the most part, was in control after the early rounds and had De La Hoya following him and also landing at willing of precise landing accuracy. His movement also kept Oscar off balance and prevented De La Hoya from getting off his punches. However, De La Hoya was able to bag some early round when they are going back and forth and made some mid and late rounds close.
As for Defense, they both showed great defense with Mayweather having a better overall defense for he was able to neutralized Oscar left hand and quick escapes out of corners and ropes. All in all, I thought Mayweather won rather easily and if De La Hoya didn’t rough house Mayweather, he would have lost even worse.