The Golden Boy was beat even before stepped in the ring with Pacman.
Oscar De La Hoya is one of the greatest fighters ever of the modern era. And yet he was no match against the then up-and-coming Manny Pacquiao when past and present collided in their so-called Dream Match on December 2008.
And, evidently, the then 35-year-old De La Hoya already knew the writing was on the wall even in the lead-up to his mega fight with the Pacman. That much he admitted in his two-part documentary, The Golden Boy, where he made quite a few more revelations about the Dream Match that catapulted Pacquiao to superstardom and pushed De La Hoya into retirement.
“I knew right there and then it was just over. I knew I was going to get beat up. I was going to lose, but something called me back. Just give me that one last time,” said the six-division world champion of his match with Pacman.
While De La Hoya already had a sense of the beating that would come his way, he nonetheless pushed through with the fight—even as he fought his own demons along the way.
“I was always the first one to wake up and go running. I was always the last one at the gym,” De La Hoya recalled on the second episode of The Golden Boy. [But] at this point [the build-up to the Pacquiao fight], I’m struggling and I had to be pushed. I needed to find a way to win.”
The struggles, apparently, were deeply personal.
“I was starting to feel all the years of taking punches. I knew this was my last fight, but I couldn’t tell anybody,” De La Hoya added. “My team was relying on me to win. It was my secret. I felt alone. And for the first time, I was drunk during camp.”
De La Hoya’s revelations are not entirely surprising given his documented history of personal troubles, which included bouts with alcoholism and drugs. This tell-all, however, is the first time he has truly opened up about that seminal bout, where he retired after eight rounds of brutal beating from the Pacman. He never fought again after that.