Oscar: Lesson learned

Dean Juipe

Thursday, July 1, 2004 | 9:14 a.m.

History will come into play as Oscar De La Hoya looks to add an undisputed middleweight championship to his collection of titles and Bernard Hopkins attempts to stop the biggest name in the sport when they fight Sept. 18 at the MGM.

The fight, which was formally announced Tuesday in Los Angeles, will be contested at a contract weight of 158 pounds and will have Hopkins' World Boxing Council, World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation titles at stake.

De La Hoya said he would be up to the challenge, admitting he wasn't fully prepared for Felix Sturm when they fought June 5 at the same site.

"I wasn't in shape," De La Hoya said of the fight against Sturm, which he won by 115-113 scores on all three judges' cards despite the fact Sturm landed 46 more punches.

While he survived that close call, De La Hoya swears he'll be ready for Hopkins and realizes the potential consequences if he isn't.

"I'm going to work hard," he said. "If I don't, he's going to knock me out (and) I don't want to be the laughingstock of the world."

It's a risk he's willing to take despite hearing warnings from friends and business associates.

"Everyone thinks I'm crazy, even people in my own company," he said. "I want to prove to everyone I can do it."

De La Hoya said Wednesday that he would retain Floyd Mayweather as his trainer and that he would move his camp back to Big Bear, Calif., after training for the Sturm fight in Puerto Rico and Florida.

Hopkins, who will train in Philadelphia before moving his camp to Miami on Aug. 1, is confident he can add De La Hoya to a list of victories that also includes Felix Trinidad, who he stopped in the 12th round when they fought three years ago in New York.

"Oscar is definitely tougher than Trinidad," he said. "Trinidad was one-dimensional and Oscar's not.

"But my plan is to knock him out. To have two knockouts against the top two Latino fighters of our era sounds sweet."

De La Hoya is 37-3 and Hopkins is 44-2-1.

Hopkins is the betting favorite for the pay-per-view fight, which has tickets on sale priced from $350 to $1,700.

"It's going to be a hard fight from Round 1 until it lasts," Hopkins said, telling photographers to "take De La Hoya's picture now because there's going to be a before and after. Today you have his before and on Sept. 18 when the fight is over, you are going to see the after."

This is all immensely satisfying to Hopkins, who had been accused of not capitalizing on his victory against Trinidad in 2001.

"For me, all it took was patience," he said. "I saw what other people couldn't see and I will prove my patience and principles have paid off.

"Being in the boxing business for 14 years, you try to put yourself in this position, to make boxing history, to be at the top. It's rare for a fighter to be at this level."

Hopkins, who is coming off a unanimous decision victory against Robert Allen on the same June 5 card that headlined De La Hoya vs. Sturm, will be paid approximately $10 million for the September fight.

De La Hoya, who expects to earn roughly $30 million for the bout, curiously said he was happy to be the underdog.

"For the first time in my career and life, there is no pressure whatsoever," he said, although few in the audience were likely to have followed his reasoning or bought into what he had to say.