Oscar de La Hoya Announces That He Is Officially Coming Out of Retirement, Will Start Boxing Again in July

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On Friday, boxing world champion and Olympic gold medalist Oscar de la Hoya announced that he officially coming out retirement.

The announcement that Oscar de La Hoya was coming out of retirement came at a press conference hosted by boxing and MMA enthusiast, Snoop Dogg.

Snoop Dogg teased the big announcement saying, “I smell something golden. You smell it?” before Oscar de la Hoya arrived on stage to reveal his big news.

“July 3, I’m making my comeback,” he said before dramatically dropping the mic and exiting the stage. Based on their reaction, the audience seemed excited about the news.

Oscar de la Hoya has been teasing his return to boxing for a while now.

Golden boy about the show these youngsters how it’s done.

— Will (@WillieG1982) March 27, 2021

Rumors of de la Hoya boxing again had been circulating for months. In August of last year, the Golden Boy revealed to ESPN that he did, indeed, have plans to come out of retirement.

“The rumors are true, and I’m going to start sparring in the next few weeks,” he said. “It’s a real fight. 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’s last boxing match was in 2008 against Filipino world champion Manny Pacquiao.

money talks

— Humberto 🇨🇺 (@imnothumberto) March 26, 2021

The 2008 fight was a major loss for de la Hoya and he stopped the fight after the eighth round. After that loss, de la Hoya famously said: “I don’t have it anymore.”

At the peak of his career, Oscar de la Hoya was the top-rated fighter in the world. Since he retired from boxing, he has spent most of his energy building Golden Boy Promotions, a boxing and mixed martial arts promotion firm. He is the first Hispanic-American to own a national boxing promotional firm.

The former world champion also founded the Oscar de la Hoya foundation, which aims to “help improve the quality of life for the community in his hometown of East Los Angeles.”

Tyson got all these old dudes coming back

— Eric A. Nelson (@eric_beingeric) March 27, 2021

De la Hoya isn’t worried about his performance, because he believes he has passion on his side. “These [young] guys are in it just for the money — that’ll be the big difference,” he told ESPN. “I will fight for the glory, and these guys only fight for the money. And guess what? The glory will always win.”

As of now, there is no word on who the Golden Boy will be fighting, although he previously said that he will fight “any top guy out there”. We’ll see how it goes!