Oscar De La Hoya vs. Bernard Hopkins

Boxing match

It's History

Date

September 18, 2004

Venue

MGM Grand Garden Arena, Paradise, Nevada, U.S.

Title(s) on the line

WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO and The Ring undisputed middleweight championship

Tale of the tape

Boxer	Bernard Hopkins	Oscar De La Hoya
Nickname	The Executioner	The Golden Boy
Hometown	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.	East Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Purse	$10,000,000	$30,000,000
Pre-fight record	44–2–1 (1) (31 KO)	37–3 (29 KO)
Age	39 years, 8 months	31 years, 7 months
Height	6 ft 1 in (185 cm)	5 ft 10+1⁄2 in (179 cm)
Weight	156 lb (71 kg)	155 lb (70 kg)
Style	Orthodox	Orthodox
Recognition	WBA (Unified), WBC, IBF and The Ring Undisputed Middleweight Champion The Ring pound-for-pound No. 1 ranked fighter	WBO Middleweight Champion The Ring No. 9 ranked pound-for-pound fighter 6-division world champion

Result

Hopkins wins via 9th-round KO

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Bernard Hopkins, billed as It's History, was a professional boxing match contested on September 18, 2004 for Hopkins' WBA (Undisputed), WBC, IBF, and The Ring middleweight championships, and Oscar De La Hoya's WBO middleweight championship.

Background

After losing the WBA and WBC light middleweight titles to Shane Mosley in September 2003, five-division world champion Oscar De La Hoya decided to move up to the middleweight division to challenge undisputed middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins, who had been middleweight champion for nearly a decade and had not lost a fight in over 11 years. Before the two would fight each other, De La Hoya and Hopkins would first have to get past Felix Sturm and Robert Allen, respectively. In a doubleheader event broadcast by HBO pay-per-view, Hopkins easily defeated Allen by a lopsided unanimous decision to retain his undisputed title, but De La Hoya struggled in his match with Sturm and only narrowly escaped with a unanimous decision (115–113 on all three scorecards) to capture Sturm's WBO middleweight title (becoming the first six-division champion in boxing history) and officially put his anticipated match with Hopkins on.

Many, including Sturm himself, felt that De La Hoya had clearly lost the fight and had been gifted the decision for the lucrative Hopkins–De La Hoya bout to continue forward. Sturm and his promoter filed a protest with the Nevada Athletic Commission in an attempt to have the decision overturned, but commission head Marc Ratner turned it down, stating there was no basis for a review.

With Sturm's protest out of the way, De La Hoya and Hopkins would proceed with their fight and agreed to a catchweight – a rarity for championship fights – of 158 pounds, in order to level the playing fields for the smaller De La Hoya, who had only one middleweight bout to his credit. Because of Hopkins' size advantage and his vast experience in the middleweight division, De La Hoya, for the first time in his professional career, was considered the "underdog", with the odds makers in Las Vegas favoring Hopkins at 2–1. De La Hoya, however, was scheduled to make a career high $30 million, while Hopkins would net $10 million, also a career high.

The fight

Through the first eight rounds, the two boxers fought a largely tactical, defense-oriented match. Going into the deciding ninth round, Hopkins was well ahead on two of the judges' official scorecards with scores of 79–73 and 78–74, while De La Hoya held a narrow lead on the third with a score of 77–75. In the ninth, Hopkins began to aggressively attack De La Hoya, and with 1:34 left in the round, sent De La Hoya down with a well-executed left hook to De La Hoya's liver. De La Hoya crumpled to the mat in pain and made no effort to answer the referee's 10-count as he was counted out at 1:38 of the round, giving Hopkins the knockout victory. For De La Hoya it was his first knockout loss in his professional career. It also remains the final knockout victory of Hopkins' career to date. The ten wins he picked up since were all by way of decision.

Aftermath

Prior to the fight, there had been talks of De La Hoya retiring after the Hopkins fight, but after his loss, he hinted that he would continue his career, stating, "I know I'm a better fighter than I ". Instead, De La Hoya took a 20-month hiatus, sitting out all of 2005, before announcing in January 2006 that he would return to fight Ricardo Mayorga for the WBC light-middleweight title in May of that year. Despite his lengthy layoff, De La Hoya dominated Mayorga en route to a sixth-round knockout victory to recapture the WBC light-middleweight title.

Hopkins, meanwhile, followed his victory over De La Hoya with a unanimous decision victory over the highly ranked British fighter Howard Eastman in February 2005. The victory was a historic one, as Hopkins tied Larry Holmes' record of 20 consecutive successful title defenses. The victory over Eastman marked both the final successful defense of his middleweight title and his final win as a middleweight. He dropped the titles in his next fight to Jermain Taylor and, after an unsuccessful bid to regain the titles in a rematch with Taylor, moved up to the light-heavyweight division.

Sales

The fight drew approximately one million pay–per–view buys and grossed $56 million in revenue. For a time, this made the fight the second most lucrative non-heavyweight bout in boxing history, behind only De La Hoya's 1999 match with Félix Trinidad, which drew 1.4 million buys and $71 million in revenue. This gave De La Hoya the top four most lucrative non-heavyweight fights in boxing history, as his 2002 bout (935,000 buys) against Fernando Vargas and his 2003 rematch with Shane Mosley (950,000 buys) were also on the list.

Undercard

Confirmed bouts:

WBA (Super)/IBF featherweight championship bout: Juan Manuel Márquez vs. Orlando Salido

Márquez defeats Salido by unanimous decision (118–110, 117–111, 117–111)

WBO light middleweight eliminator bout: Kofi Jantuah vs. Marco Antonio Rubio

Jantuah defeats Rubio by first-round knockout

Middleweight bout: Kelly Pavlik vs. Carlton Holland

Pavlik defeats Holland by second-round knockout

Broadcasting

Country	Broadcaster
Hungary	Sport 1
United Kingdom	Sky Sports
United States	HBO

References

"Bernard Hopkins vs. Oscar De La Hoya". boxrec.com. BoxRec. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
Katz, Michael (7 June 2004). "BOXING; Hopkins vs. De La Hoya Is Set". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 February 2004.
Associated Press (12 June 2004). "Sturm protests loss to De La Hoya". USA Today. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
^ Tatum, Kevin (17 September 2004). "A Face-Off With Fists Underdog role is a Motivator for De La Hoya". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on March 7, 2014. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
Sandomir, Richard (19 September 2004). "Hopkins Is the First to Knock Out De La Hoya". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
Hirsley, Michael (20 September 2004). "De La Hoya hints he won't quit on losing note". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
Hirsley, Michael (25 January 2006). "De La Hoya plans to go out swinging". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
Johnson, Chuck (7 May 2006). "De La Hoya wins WBC super welterweight belt over Mayorga by sixth-round TKO". USA Today. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
"Make it 20 defenses in row for Hopkins". The Baltimore Sun. 20 February 2005. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
"De La Hoya's a Champ to Paying Viewers". The New York Times. 24 September 2004. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
"BoxRec - event".

Preceded byvs. Robert Allen III	Bernard Hopkins's bouts 18 September 2004	Succeeded byvs. Howard Eastman
Preceded byvs. Felix Sturm	Oscar De La Hoya's bouts 18 September 2004	Succeeded byvs. Ricardo Mayorga

v t e Bernard Hopkins
Fights	Jones vs. Hopkins Hopkins vs. Lipsey Hopkins vs. Allen Hopkins vs. Holmes Trinidad vs. Hopkins Hopkins vs. Joppy Hopkins vs. Allen III De La Hoya vs. Hopkins Hopkins vs. Taylor Taylor vs. Hopkins II Tarver vs. Hopkins Hopkins vs. Wright Hopkins vs. Calzaghe Pavlik vs. Hopkins Hopkins vs. Jones II Pascal vs. Hopkins Pascal vs. Hopkins II Hopkins vs. Dawson Hopkins vs. Dawson II Cloud vs. Hopkins Hopkins vs. Murat Hopkins vs. Shumenov Hopkins vs. Kovalev Hopkins vs. Smith
Trainers	English Fisher (1989–2002, 2003-2005) Naazim Richardson (-2015) John David Jackson (2016)
Promoters	Butch Lewis Productions (1992–1996) America Presents (1996–1999) Don King Productions (2001–2004) Golden Boy Promotions (2004–2016)

v t e Oscar De La Hoya
Fights	De La Hoya vs. J Mayweather Bredahl vs. De La Hoya De La Hoya vs. Campanella De La Hoya vs. Páez De La Hoya vs. Griffith De La Hoya vs. Avila De La Hoya vs. Molina De La Hoya vs. Ruelas De La Hoya vs. Hernández De La Hoya vs. Leija Chávez vs. De La Hoya Whitaker vs. De La Hoya De La Hoya vs. Camacho De La Hoya vs. Rivera De La Hoya vs. Charpentier De La Hoya vs. Chavez II De La Hoya vs. Quartey De La Hoya vs. Carr De La Hoya vs. Trinidad De La Hoya vs. Coley De La Hoya vs. Mosley De La Hoya vs. Gatti De La Hoya vs. Castillejo De La Hoya vs. Vargas De La Hoya vs. Campas De La Hoya vs. Mosley II De La Hoya vs. Sturm De La Hoya vs. Hopkins De La Hoya vs. Mayorga De La Hoya vs. F Mayweather De La Hoya vs. Forbes De La Hoya vs. Pacquiao
Trainers	Robert Alcazar (1992–2000) Jesus Rivero (1996–1997) Emanuel Steward (1997) Gil Clancy (1997–1999) Floyd Mayweather Sr. (2000–2006, 2008) Freddie Roach (2007) Nacho Beristain (2008)
Promoters	Top Rank (–2000, 2001–2004) Univision Sports (2000–2001) Golden Boy Promotions (2002–2008)
Founded	Golden Boy Promotions De La Hoya Animo High School
Related	Statue of Oscar De La Hoya

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