Oscar De La Hoya vs. Shane Mosley

"Destiny"
Date	June 17, 2000
Location	Staples Center in Los Angeles, California
Title(s) on the line	WBC/IBA/Lineal Welterweight Championships
Tale of the tape
Oscar De La Hoya Shane Mosley Nickname "The Golden Boy" "Sugar" Purse $15,000,000 $4,500,000 Hometown East Los Angeles, California Pomona, California Pre-fight record 32–1 34–0 Height 5'10" 5'8" Weight 146.5 lb 147 lb Style Orthodox Orthodox Recognition WBC/IBA Welterweight Champion WBC #1 Ranked Welterweight

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Shane Mosley, billed as "Destiny", was a professional boxing match contested on June 17, 2000 for the WBC, IBA (both held by De La Hoya) and the vacant lineal welterweight championships.

Background

The previous year, De La Hoya had lost the WBC welterweight title to Felix Trinidad. De La Hoya's first loss as a professional was met with controversy, as De La Hoya seemed to be in control for most of the fight's first eight rounds. However, at the urging of his corner, De La Hoya took a more defensive approach in the later rounds, leading to Trinidad taking all of the final four rounds on the scorecards and a majority decision victory. De La Hoya demanded a rematch, but an agreement was never reached^[1] Instead, De La Hoya took an "eliminator" bout with little-known Derrell Coley, who was the number one ranked welterweight fighter by the WBC. The winner was originally set to become the mandatory challenger to Trinidad, but the winner was all but guaranteed to become the new WBC welterweight champion as Trinidad was on the verge of vacating the title in order to move up to the middleweight division and challenge David Reid.^[2] De La Hoya would defeat Coley by seventh round knockout to capture the lightly regarded IBA welterweight title, and shortly after, was once again named the WBC welterweight champion.^[3] With De La Hoya and Trinidad not able to come to terms on a rematch, De La Hoya instead reached an agreement in March 2000 to face Shane Mosley in June.^[4] Mosley was undefeated 34 professional bouts and had previously fought in the lightweight division where he had been the IBF champion from 1997 to 1999 before relinquishing the title in September 1999 to move up to welterweight. At the time of his fight with De La Hoya, Mosley had only two welterweight fights to his credit, and as such, came into the fight as a 2-1 betting underdog. Nevertheless, Mosley was guaranteed no less than $4.5 million, the highest purse of his career at the time, while De La Hoya was set to earn $15 million.^[5]

The fight

In a closely contested fight, Mosley would earn a narrow split decision victory to become only the sixth fighter (at the time) to win titles in both the lightweight and welterweight divisions. Two judges scored the fight for Mosley with scores of 116–112 and 115–113, while the third had De La Hoya the winner with a score of 115–113. HBO's unofficial scorer Harold Lederman also ruled in favor of Mosley with a score of 116–112. De La Hoya had a slight edge during some of the bout's early rounds, but as the fight went to the later rounds, De La Hoya seemed to tire and the fight began to turn in Mosley's favor. Mosley rallied to take rounds seven through 12 on one of the scorecards and five of the last six on the other, often scoring punches in flurries to win those rounds, which proved to be the difference in the fight.^[6] The final punch stats were close, though Mosley had the overall edge, landing 284 of 678 thrown punches (42%) as opposed to De La Hoya's 257 of 718 (36%). Mosley also outlanded De La Hoya in both jabs and power punches. Mosley was able to land well over half his power punches, landing 174 of 304 for a 57% success rate. De La Hoya was only nine power punches short of Mosley, having landed 165, but at only a 37% success rate.

Aftermath

Like his fight against Trinidad, De La Hoya felt that he had won the fight and called for a rematch in his post-fight interview. However, De La Hoya was disenchanted with the loss that he even considered retirement.^[7] De La Hoya would not fight for the remainder of 2000, eventually returning to defeat Arturo Gatti in March 2001.

Mosley would successfully defend the welterweight title three times against three unheralded opponents before losing the title to Vernon Forrest in January 2002. After unsuccessfully challenging Forrest in a bid to regain the welterweight title, Mosley finally began talks with De La Hoya for the long awaited rematch. After months of negotiations, the two fighters finally came to an agreement in March 2003 to face one another on September 13, 2003.^[8]

References