LOS ANGELES – When the end came, it was the real Oscar De La Hoya who said goodbye, shorn of the bravado inherent in every boxer and the business persona which is his future.
As he stood in the chic surrounds of the Nokia Plaza in downtown Los Angeles, a few miles but a world apart from his humble East Los Angeles beginnings, the fight game’s Golden Boy waged a losing battle with tears as he wrenched himself away from his career.
The great and the good of the City of Angels came out in force to bid farewell to a beloved son, to celebrate a charismatic man with the touch of Midas who rose from streets addled with social decay to piece together one of boxing’s most remarkable stories.
For nearly two decades, the 36-year-old’s easy demeanor fueled his immense popularity, and his emotional departure on Tuesday afternoon may have been the hardest part of the journey.
“Boxing is the love of my life,” said De La Hoya, standing at a podium just yards away from a recently unveiled statue of himself. “It is my passion; it is what I was born to do.”
More than that, it was what he was born to do to an exceptional standard. An Olympic gold medal and 10 world titles in six divisions is first ballot Hall of Fame material in its own right. He fought on HBO pay-per-view 19 times, generating $696.4 million in revenue and leaving boxing as its all-time leading pay-per-view performer.
