De La Hoya-Pacquiao bout set
After much deliberation and haggling, Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao will fight Dec. 6 at the MGM Grand Garden in what will be the final fight in De La Hoya's Hall of Fame career.
The official announcement will be made today at a teleconference in Los Angeles.
Neither Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, nor Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, who promotes Pacquiao, would confirm the matchup. However, ESPN.com was reporting on its Web site Wednesday that the deal was done.
A spokesman for Top Rank said the announcement has to come from Golden Boy. Arum, who was in Youngstown, Ohio, on Wednesday promoting the Kelly Pavlik-Bernard Hopkins fight scheduled for Oct. 18, said he'll discuss the De La Hoya-Pacquiao fight today once the official announcement is made.
The negotiations between the two camps have been ongoing for weeks. De La Hoya insisted on a 70-30 split of the revenue from the pay-per-view fight, which is expected to exceed $100 million. But Pacquiao wanted at least 40 percent. The fight appeared dead a couple of weeks ago after Arum and Schaefer met in Los Angeles and were unable to come to terms. Since then, De La Hoya apparently has budged somewhat on the split.
For De La Hoya (39-5, 30 knockouts), this will be the final episode of his career. He has won titles in six weight classes and is an Olympic gold medalist from the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Spain. He last fought May 5, when he won a 12-round unanimous decision over Steve Forbes. But De La Hoya has fought just six times in the past five years, winning three of them.
Pacquiao, the WBC lightweight champion, will be moving up in weight for the third time this year. He won a 12-round split decision over Juan Manuel Marquez in March at 130, then scored a ninth-round technical-knockout victory over David Diaz in June fighting at 135.
For the De La Hoya bout, Pacquiao reportedly will fight at 147 pounds, the heaviest at which he has competed. Pacquiao (47-3-2, 35 KOs) has won titles in five weight classes and has won eight straight fights.
Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913.
