Oscar De La Hoya Cites Death Threats For Missing Davis vs Garcia Post-Fight Presser
For better and definitely for worse, Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) founder and six-division champion Oscar De La Hoya has a knack for making headlines. This time, the colorful and frequently muzzy promoter has made news due to fleeing for his life. At least, that is the explanation that De La Hoya provided when asked why he was glaringly absent from lightweight boxer “King” Ryan Garcia’s (23-1, 19 KO’s) last post-fight presser.
SAY WHAT NOW?!
Garcia has just lost the biggest fight of his life to Regular WBA 135-pound champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis following a particularly testy pre-fight buildup – making it rather important for De La Hoya to show up! Prior to the duel, Hoya went well out of his way to outline how it appeared that Davis’s promotional company, Premier Boxing Champions, lacked faith in Tank.
In the end though, Davis knifed Garcia’s ribs with a sharp left hook that sank him to a knee where he remained for the full ten count. One would think this was the ideal time for a supporting promotional company to rally around their defeated fighter. Instead, The Golden Boy went live on social media to explain how he instead opted to hightail it out of the T-Mobile arena and rush to his own safety!
“My security team told me, ‘Boss we got to get the fuck out of here!’, because I received death threats! You guys don’t know this – I received death threats throughout the whole week and they simply said it was too dangerous, so we got out of there! And plus, Eric Gomez, who is my president, who was right there front and center with Ryan Garcia. So there was no issue, no problems.
This is all coming from all these PBC minions that are just attacking Ryan, attacking Golden Boy! But it’s all good . . . Ryan Garcia, I have your back! Bernard [Hopkins (also missing from the post-fight conference)] has your back, we’re with you one thousand percent and you will be back stronger than ever! Better than ever, guaranteed!”
BAD LOOK NUMBER TWO
Obviously, the first thing one would wonder is: if the death threats were rolling in all week, what made the final post-fight conference so dangerous? Especially when it traditionally has the least amount of people in attendance, the PBC fighter won, and nearly all the fans had left the arena? Only the principal characters in the situation really know the truth anyway. Perhaps there was more peril that we are not privy to.
No matter how you slice it though, the glaring absence of both, Oscar De La Hoya and company man Bernard Hopkins, is a bad look. It will be interesting to see how, or if, any ripple effects permeate throughout Garcia’s relationship with Golden Boy going forward. They have already famously had public disputes in the past.
To make matters worse, GBP lost boxing cash cow Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in the not so distant past. Similarly, De La Hoya was not in attendance for Canelo’s infamous battle with Floyd Mayweather, which was the Mexican’s biggest fight to date at that point. On that occasion, Oscar De La Hoya was in rehab and his fighter was beaten then as well. So, the last thing on Earth that Golden Boy wants to do is lose another red hot commodity like Ryan Garcia! No matter where the card may fall however, 3Kings Boxing will be here to report the news!
