Boxing's richest fighter of all-time, Oscar "The Golden
Boy" De La Hoya takes on Steve "Two Pounds" Forbes on
Saturday May 3rd at the Home Depot Center in Carson,
California, and
Bodoglife.com lists De La Hoya as the overwhelming
-2000
favorite to win the fight. I see him listed as high as a
-3333 favorite at
Sportsinteraction. With this just scheduled to be a
tune up fight for De La Hoya's rematch with Floyd
Mayweather Jr. scheduled for September 20th, 2008,
oddsmakers are giving Forbes absolutely no shot. With
the value in taking Forbes very high with the chance for
a big reward with little risk, he is sure to get some
action from value hunters, but will they just be
throwing their money away? Get Jimmy Boyd's take as he
weighs the De La Hoya – Forbes odds.
Let's cut right to the chase. There's absolutely no way
De La Hoya can lose this fight for the sake of boxing.
Boxing doesn't have near the following it once had with
the UFC now gaining the public's popularity vote. A loss
to Forbes here ruins the hype surrounding the already
schedule rematch with Mayweather and it likely wipes the
bout out all together. De La Hoya has a career record of
38 wins and 5 losses with 30 wins coming by way of
knockout. He started his career 31-0 before losing to
Felix Trinidad in a 1999 WBC and IBF Welterweight Title
bout. He has lost three of his last five fights but
those losses were to Floyd Mayweather Jr., Bernard
Hopkins, and Shane Mosely.
Stephen Forbes is a former IBF and USBA Super
Featherweight title holder. His nickname "Two Pounds"
doesn't have anything to do with the ring. It is a
reminder to himself and the world that he only weighed
two pounds when he was born. So naturally a small guy
like this wanted to become a boxer to prove he is tough
despite his size. I'm just not sure he's tough enough to
handle even an aged De La Hoya. Forbes has an impressive
professional record of 32 wins and only 5 losses, but
only 9 wins have come by way of knockout. That is
significant because the only real chance I see him
having to win is to knock De La Hoya out. Bernard
Hopkins is the only boxer to ever knock De La Hoya out
so I definitely don't see a boxer which has had trouble
dropping Super Featherweights drop one of the best
fighters of all time.
Let me rephrase what I stated earlier; I know Forbes is
not tough enough to handle The Golden Boy. While it's
probably not worth laying a ridiculous amount of juice
for a small return, unless of course you've got it to
lay, we'll likely look to make our wager on the
over/under 9.5 rounds. De La Hoya's goal is not to knock
out Forbes. It is to go the distance to get his ring
conditioning down and to work on technique. This fight
is entirely geared toward his upcoming match with
Mayweather so he's not looking to wow the crowd with a
knockout here. He did knockout Mayorga in his comeback
fight after losing to Hopkins, but that was to show the
world he still had it in him. He'll have a different
mindset here.
