The level of resentment between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya reached a boiling point last week when the Golden Boy blasted Mayweather in an open letter. With several days to think about the letter, Mayweather has decided to come out swinging.
In an interview with David Mayo of MLive.com, Mayweather noted that De La Hoya was basically criticizing himself when he called Floyd out for fighting lesser opponents. De La Hoya, of course, owns the Golden Boys Promotion company that Mayweather used to fight for.
“I mean, this is the same guy, I’m so boring, but he fed all his fighters to me,” Mayweather said. “So it’s obvious he did it because it was all about the money for him.”
Mayweather left Golden Boy Promotions in 2014 when former CEO Richard Schaefer departed the company. He fought under his own company, Mayweather Promotions, in his record-breaking fight against Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather believes part of the reason De La Hoya is lashing out is that he is jealous he was cut out.
“I think he’s jealous — jealous,” Floyd said. “The thing is this, I mean, you see Richard Schaefer is gone. Richard Schaefer built Golden Boy. Honestly, who wants to do business with Oscar De La Hoya? I really care about a fighter’s well-being. I’m just saying if Miguel Cotto was my fighter, if Canelo (Alvarez) was my fighter, they’d be a lot bigger than they are now.”
Of course, no verbal assault on De La Hoya would be complete without bringing up his drug use and alleged affinity for dressing in drag.
“What are we talking about? Drugs, lies and adultery. And dressing in drag,” Mayweather said. “Me, as a fighter, I’m just saying, if I was a young fighter coming up, a guy that’s lying, a guy that’s on drugs, a guy that we don’t know if he’s going to show up, he’s not 100 percent, I’ve only got to say one thing — he couldn’t be my promoter. If I was a young fighter coming up, I would not want Oscar De La Hoya as my promoter. Me, as a fighter, I couldn’t trust him.”
While we agree with what De La Hoya said about Mayweather taking easy fights and being afraid of challenges, Floyd did make a good point when noting that De La Hoya criticized him for fighting Alvarez when Alvarez was too young. As Mayweather said, De La Hoya’s promotion company helped set up the fight.
De La Hoya has gone after Mayweather hard in recent months, which we saw with this tweet he sent in September. Perhaps he never got over what Floyd did two years ago. Whatever the case, these two won’t be sitting down to a friendly dinner anytime soon.
