Columnist Dean Juipe: De La Hoya could easily walk away

Dean Juipe

Monday, Sept. 20, 1999 | 10:55 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

At this point in time it would be just as easy for Oscar De La Hoya to quit rather than to continue fighting.

In the aftermath of his Saturday loss to Felix Trinidad at Mandalay Bay, the one-time Golden Boy has to be looking at his boxing career from an entirely different perspective. While he frequently has hinted at an early retirement, he may now actually find the temptation hard to resist.

His public statements and posturing aside, De La Hoya has, for some time now, exhibited a real lack of desire when it comes to providing his many fans with precisely what they want to see. It's not that he doesn't know what they want, it's just that he's reluctant to become the brawler they always hoped he would be.

Countless athletes have fantastic natural abilities, but if the key element of desire is missing the package will never be complete. And it's apparent De La Hoya's desire is waning or has deserted him entirely in his most recent fights.

The one-time crowd pleaser has quit pleasing the crowds and has, instead, resorted to only doing what is necessary to get by.

This decision, as well as this loss (and the high price of actually attending his fights) has cut into his fan base, yet De La Hoya can be as oblivious as he likes toward the general public. When all the pay-per-view receipts are counted he is expected to receive upward of $20 million for losing to Trinidad, and that's on top of the roughly $100 million he had already earned prior to Saturday.

Clearly, he does not need the money or even the attention he derives from boxing. De La Hoya has other irons in the fire and both of the primary ones -- singing and acting -- are occupations that don't require getting hit in the head.

And he has tired of getting hit in the head and tired of spending long periods of time training for fights. He no longer needs boxing.

In all probability he will fight again, if only another time or two to appease his promoter, Bob Arum. But the luster is off De La Hoya's career and he could just as easily say his thanks and walk away from the sport right now while he's still in one piece.

Staying in one piece has been his top priority, and there's no criticizing him on that count. Yet the truly great and best-loved fighters have been guys who allowed themselves to mix it up when circumstances dictated, even at the risk of scrambling some brain cells.

While he took those risks earlier in his career -- maybe because he was noticeably stronger than most of his opponents at lesser weights -- De La Hoya hasn't been as inclined to trade with the men he has been facing at 147 pounds. As a result, he picks his shots and more or less tries to win his fights by decision.

That may be the safest approach to boxing but it isn't the most ingratiating from the fans' perspective, and many of them were booing during the Trinidad fight and the boos were directed at Oscar. The same people who paid so much money and who so badly wanted to be overwhelmed by De La Hoya found themselves, instead, disappointed in his performance and perhaps joining in the ranks of the vocally displeased.

Given his reluctance to truly fight, De La Hoya may look in the mirror and weigh the notion of getting out of the sport. The trouble is, he'll find Arum staring back and pleading for a little something extra.