Oscar De La Hoya On Weigh-Ins: In Between Fights, You Can’t Be Fluctuating Up And Down

We will have a Golden Boy Promotions card on DAZN live from downtown Los Angeles tomorrow night. It won’t feature the welterweight contender Vergil Ortiz Jr. (18-0), as he had to pull out of the fight due to an illness. Instead, we will have the charismatic Blair “The Flair” Cobbs (15-0-1) going up against Alexis Rocha (18-1).

Leading up to this weekend’s card, Oscar De La Hoya checked in with Ak & Barak on “The DAZN Boxing Show .” Ak & Barak, who were formerly on Sirius XM, have been brought onto the DAZN platform to provide more of a pop culture feel to covering the sport of boxing. Both men pull no punches, and when they had Oscar on the show, they immediately asked him about Vergil Ortiz Jr’s current status.

Oscar De La Hoya said, “He is doing much better as I spoke to him a few minutes ago. It’s unfortunate on what happened. Health is first. He’s a hard worker. Probably the one of the hardest workers in boxing today. He did the right thing. His father did the right thing.” The Golden Boy continued, “Look, his liver was shutting down. How can we force a fighter to go inside the ring when your liver is shutting down? Luckily, we are going to save the show as the show must go on.”

As the show moved along, the topic of weight loss was brought up and whether same-day weigh-ins would be the remedy to all of this. With a ton of passion and a little fire in his eyes, Oscar said, “It’s up to the fighter. You have to be professional. I was a fighter who started fighting professionally at 130 pounds. My first world title, I weighed in the day of the fight at 128. You have to be a professional. In between fights, you can’t be fluctuating up and down. You have to stick to your diet every single time.”

After he finished that last statement, you can tell it triggered a thought about his good friend and business partner, Bernard Hopkins. The Hall of Famer De La Hoya continued, “Probably the last perfect example is Bernard Hopkins. It’s not that he stayed in the gym every single day, its just that he took care of his body. Don’t go out and eat fast food and the grandmother’s cooking. Stick to your plan after the fight, and then once you start training, you aren’t training to lose weight. You are training for the actual fighter in front of you. It’s about a fighter being disciplined, staying hungry, and realizing that your career is a short window.”

Oscar didn’t stop there; he continued on this topic and said, “You have a short period of time to make all of the money you want because all of these fighters are now thinking about making money. You have that window to make money, your legacy, and make history, so you might as well do it right. Because next thing you know, you’re retired, regretting why I didn’t make weight or fight for a world title. Might as well just focus on the job on hand for those so many years and make the best of it.”

Oscar makes a ton of sense, and although people like to poke at the things he says and does as a promoter from time to time, one thing you cannot question is what he did inside the ring. The man fought everyone and is a hall of famer for it, so when topics like this get brought up, people listen. As always, Ak & Barak asked the questions the people want to hear answered by those in the position to answer them.

The rest of the interview can be found on DAZN under “The DAZN Boxing Show.”

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