BOXING
Oscar De La Hoya unloads on Floyd Mayweather over Ryan Garcia
The founder of Golden Boy Promotions takes to social media to tell Floyd Mayweather that he should stay in his own lane when it comes to Ryan Garcia.
Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather have a prickly relationship that goes back a long way. Both were rivals in the ring in 2007, with De La Hoya handing Mayweather his toughest fight. Floyd scraped through that with a controversial split decision win that many feel should have gone De La Hoya’s way.
In retirement, they have both set up promotion companies, Oscar with Golden Boy and Floyd with Mayweather Promotions, drawing some of the biggest names in boxing to their stables.
Now, Oscar De La Hoya has taken to social media to tell Floyd to “fuck off” amid claims that Mayweather was the driving force behind Ryan Garcia’s decision to snub Devin Haney and pursue a bout with Rolly Romero.
Garcia and De La Hoya have had their own spats in public, with the boxer publicly denouncing his own promotion team in the press conference before the fight with Oscar Duarte. Despite not seeing eye-to-eye, Golden Boy still promotes Garcia and had been busy hammering out a deal for him to face WBC super-lightweight world champion Devin Haney.
Earlier this week, however, Ryan Garcia made a sensational about-face, saying that he wanted to face WBA super-lightweight world champion Rollie Romero instead.
In financial terms, the Haney fight is the bigger fight, and while he may be the tougher opponent of the two, everyone would have stood to make a ton of money. Except Floyd.
Devin Haney is promoted by Matchroom Boxing, while Rollie Romero is promoted by Mayweather Promotions. With the change of opponent, Floyd gets paid.
Garcia has made it clear that Floyd Mayweather is “mentoring” him as he trains, going out for morning jogs together. De La Hoya posted on his Instagram Stories:
“Pre-run with Floyd = Ryan wants Haney.
Post-run with Floyd = Ryan wants Rolly.
Golden Boy has worked with Ryan Garcia since he turned pro, and together have made him the biggest draw in boxing. We will make his fight with Rolly into a huge event, as we always do.
Floyd, if you want to give Ryan the secret to defence in the ring, that’s great. Other than that, if you are still a promoter like it says here, fuck off.”
When questioned about Garcia’s relationship with Floyd, De La Hoya said, “That’s awesome. Look, I always praise a fighter, a young fighter who wants to soak up all that information from a legend, from an icon. So when I saw Ryan running with Floyd, I was like yeah, ask him questions about defense, about you know.”
On the fracturing of his relationship with Garcia, Oscar continued, “If Ryan wants to go with Floyd, and not to me, so be it, it’s great. Because that’s another legend. Different styles but another legend. So it’s all information that these young fighters are soaking in, which is great.”
Mayweather has yet to respond to De La Hoya’s comments.