47-year-old boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya is ending his retirement, and will return to boxing action once again.
De La Hoya confirmed the news during a recent interview with ESPN. The Mexican-American star and Golden Boy Promotions frontman is set to resume sparring in the next few weeks.
“The rumors are true, and I’m going to start sparring in the next few weeks,” De La Hoya said.
One big difference between De La Hoya’s return, and that of Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr., whose exhibition bout may be in doubt, is that De La Hoya’s fight will be “real.”
“It’s a real fight,” De La Hoya said. “I miss being in the ring, I love boxing. Boxing is what gave me everything I have today, and I just miss it.”
Oscar De La Hoya hasn’t competed in a professional boxing bout since 2008. There, he suffered an eight-round stoppage loss to Manny Pacquiao. Now, the former welterweight and middleweight champion feels like some aspects of his game are better than they ever have been, and he’ll be working towards getting himself in shape for a return to action.
“Look, it’s been a long time, yes,” De La Hoya said. “But actually my jab feels faster than ever. I have to make sure that my conditioning is perfect, my health is good. And that’s going to take place in the next few weeks. So we’ll see.”
As for who De La Hoya will fight, he’s open to facing any top star from 154-160 pounds.
“Any top guy, any top guy out there,” said De La Hoya.
