De La Hoya hopes to keep working with Mayweather

Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya have been doing business together since their May 2007 fight. But as Mayweather’s career winds down to a precious few fights, that relationship could change.

Mayweather, boxing’s most attractive draw, who faces Marcos Maidana tonight at the MGM Grand Garden, recently received his promoter’s license from the Nevada Athletic Commission. Before that, De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions was Mayweather’s promoter of record for his fights in Las Vegas.

But now that Mayweather is his own promoter of record, he might not need to work with Golden Boy — at least in the legal sense.

“I hope that’s not going to be the case,” De La Hoya, the company’s president, said Friday. “I would hate to think it would be the end of our relationship with Floyd. It’s been very profitable for both sides.”

Mayweather is close with Richard Schaefer, the former CEO of Golden Boy, and that could be a factor in his business relationship with De La Hoya. Schaefer resigned in June, and he and De La Hoya are involved in a nasty legal battle, with Schaefer trying to get a release from his contract with Golden Boy, which runs through 2018.

But De La Hoya said he has a good working relationship with Al Haymon, Mayweather’s co-manager who has several fighters that work with Golden Boy.

“Al and I are on the same page,” De La Hoya said.

Mayweather has said he intends to fight twice in 2015, then retire. If that’s the case, the window of opportunity indeed might be closing on De La Hoya.

De La Hoya also is attempting to rekindle his relationship with Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, Mayweather’s former promoter. The two met for 90 minutes Thursday at Top Rank’s office.

The sport’s two largest companies are attempting to end the cold war that has existed between them for more than eight years, since De La Hoya signed Manny Pacquiao away from Top Rank in 2006.

“We’re moving in the right direction,” De La Hoya said. “We talked about working together on some fights, and several names came up — obviously Canelo (Alvarez) and Mikey Garcia and (Ruslan) Provodnikov and (Miguel) Cotto. I’m planning to talk to Bob next week in Los Angeles and see where it goes from there.

“But this is not that easy. It’s complicated. I have sponsors. Bob has sponsors. Bob has TV (HBO), I have TV (Showtime). Like I said, it’s complicated, but it’s not impossible. Hopefully, we’ll end the cold war and give the fans the fights they want and deserve to see.”

De La Hoya will be honored today by Nevada and Clark County with a day in his honor to help kick off the Mexican Independence Day weekend celebration. He’ll be issued a proclamation at the “Welcome” sign on Las Vegas Boulevard at 1 p.m.

“Nevada has always been very good to me, and to be honored like this is very humbling,” De La Hoya said.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.