Columnist Dean Juipe: Mayweather, De La Hoya could meet

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, April 9, 2003 | 9:50 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Boxing is not a sport that lends itself to long-range plans. It's a little too unpredictable to think too far ahead.

Fighters lose.

They get arrested.

Their interest wanes.

So when Floyd Mayweather Jr. talks of fighting Oscar De La Hoya in May 2004, it's as if the least of the concerns is that Mayweather regularly fights at 135 pounds and De La Hoya at 154.

There are far greater factors.

Mayweather hopes to have three other fights by then. De La Hoya will have at least two. Both would need to win each of those bouts to make a fight 13 months from now the showdown it seemingly has the potential to be.

There's also the possibility that De La Hoya retires at the end of this year, as he once said he would do, or that he would fight Bernard Hopkins at 160 pounds in May 2004, as he has said he would like to do.

Yet the Mayweather vs. De La Hoya bandwagon picked up speed Tuesday, even as promoter Bob Arum was trying to solidify De La Hoya's Sept. 13 fight with Shane Mosley.

"At first Oscar wasn't in favor (of fighting Mayweather), but week by week he's come along," said Arum, who promotes both men.

De La Hoya has the ultimate say in who he fights. He wanted Mosley and if he wants to fight Hopkins rather than Mayweather, then that's how it's going to go.

But Mayweather vs. De La Hoya has a built-in intrigue which promoters love to exploit and which leads to sold-out crowds and extravagant pay-per-view numbers. Beyond the fact Mayweather would be moving up three weight classes -- or one more than Roy Jones did for his victory against then-heavyweight champion John Ruiz last month -- is the fact De La Hoya is trained by Floyd Mayweather Sr. and that father and son are not on the greatest of terms.

"I want my dad to continue training him," Mayweather said. "My dad has never seen me lose, so he doesn't know how to train someone to beat me."

Mayweather, a Las Vegan who will fight baseball star Sammy Sosa's cousin, Victoriano Sosa, April 19 in Fresno, is 29-0 and always comes across as supremely confident. But he has never fought on pay-per-view and at 26 years old that lack of acclaim is starting to gnaw at him.

De La Hoya, 30, is 35-2 and is arguably the sport's biggest star.

"He's at the top of his career and I'm at the top of mine," Mayweather said. I'm a fighter but I'm also a businessman (and) who doesn't want to see me and him fight?

"I know we're going to fight. It's going to end up happening."

I actually think it will, too.

And part of my reasoning is that Arum will go along with it not only for the financial bonanza, but because the risk of promoting both men will be minimized by the fact his contract with Mayweather will be coming to an end (and that he expects Mayweather to then sign with someone such as rival promoter Don King). So from Arum's perspective, it might well be a final chance to make a few bucks on Mayweather, whose fights haven't always turned a profit.

May 8, 2004, is the target date for the fight and maybe by the time next year's calendars come out it'll be a date that can be circled in something other than pencil.