Had Oscar De La Hoya still been competing today, there is little doubt that he and Saul ‘Canelo‘ Alvarez would settle their difference in the ring.
De La Hoya – who retired back in 2008 as a six-weight world champion – promoted Canelo for most of his career until a bitter split in 2020, and the pair continue to trade jabs through the media to this day.
Alongside him in his company Golden Boy Promotions is former opponent and fellow Hall of Famer, Bernard Hopkins, who was asked by to predict a fantasy match-up between the rivals.
Hopkins backed his business partner in the bout, saying he would outbox Alvarez.
“Oscar by decision. He would outbox him, jab him. If you look at me and Oscar’s fight, I knew I was losing that fight and my trainer told me you gotta be the big guy. I was bigger as far as you know I’d been at middleweight just about 80% of my career. I had to go ahead and force my will on Oscar and actually get close to Oscar.
But leading up to that tenth, eleventh round, he was winning and I was getting outpointed. I would hit Oscar with one or two punches, he’d hit me with three, four, five. They didn’t hurt me but they were still adding up and I had to literally go and actually make him fight with me like Canelo would try to do.”
Canelo looks to continue to make history in the sport with two fights this year. The first is against new IBF World Champion William Scull in a bid to become two-time undisputed in the super middleweight ranks. If all goes to plan there, he will co-star in a mega fight with Terence Crawford in September.
