Tension mounts for De la Hoya-Mayweather showdown

BOXING: Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather arrived here Tuesday for their Saturday boxing showdown, a fight that could mark their farewells and the end of an era or help revive the struggling sport.

In a bout that will stand among the top moneymakers in boxing history, unbeaten Mayweather, 37-0 with 24 knockouts, will try to take the World Boxing Council super welterweight crown from de la Hoya, 38-4 with 30 knockouts.

Total revenue expectations are beyond 90 million dollars for Latino "Golden Boy" de la Hoya, 34, taking on 30-year-old "Pretty Boy Floyd" on Cinco de Mayo, a holiday for US veteran de la Hoya's passionate Mexican supporters.

"You have got the two best fighters of our era," Mayweather said. "Oscar had a big, exciting career. I've had a big, exciting career. It's going to be a hell of a fight. It deserves to generate that kind of money."

De La Hoya, who has fought only once in the past 2 1/2 years, returned from his layoff to promote as well as fight. The world champion in six different weight classes is expected to make between 25 and 30 million dollars.

Mayweather, looking at a minimum of 10 million dollars and likely much more, has won crowns in four weight classes. Like compatriot de la Hoya, Mayweather has said this is the ultimate battle and the moment to retire.

"This is my last one. I've done enough," Mayweather said. "I have nothing else to prove in this sport. I've done what I had to do."

Years of trash talking by Mayweather about de la Hoya, months of promotion and record revenue have turned back the clock to the Vegas megafight glory days of bygone heroes and lighter-weight legends - if only for a night.

But if the fight lives up to the hype, de la Hoya might have positioned himself to become a next generation Don King as a promotional force and he and Mayweather might be lured back into the ring for a huge-payday sequel.

Golden Boy Promotions has signed 50 million dollars in corporate sponsorship for the fight, yielding such items as beer cans with fighters' faces and cross promotion of products with the fight.

"With sponsorships, it's just a whole different promotion - like no other fight has ever been promoted. The synergies are amazing. It's how boxing should be promoted," de la Hoya said.

"It feels much bigger than any other fight I've been involved in. Everybody knows about this fight. All eyes will be on the boxing world and inside that ring. Now it's up to us to perform. And perform as hard as we can."

De La Hoya dismissed the notion the sponsorship money would dry up once he left the ring for good.

"Will it continue? Absolutely it will continue," he said.

So the stakes are high in the US gambling mecca for a sport struggling to find new breakout stars to replace Mike Tyson, Britain's Lennox Lewis or Puerto Rican hero Felix Trinidad, who famously beat de la Hoya in 1999.

Mayweather recalled watching Marvin Hagler fight "Sugar" Ray Leonard as a child 20 years ago.

"I remember being a kid and saying there would never be another fight bigger than this fight. And here we are," Mayweather said.

"It takes two to get to this point. You have two decorated champions. That's why this is the biggest fight in boxing history. That's why this fight sold out so quick. It takes two." "You always hear people saying Oscar is the draw. He didn't do this with Trinidad.

He didn't do this with any of his other opponents. It took two. Mayweather and de la Hoya both is the draw."

The all-time pay-per-view revenue mark was the 2002 Tyson-Lewis heavyweight fight at 107 million dollars. Tyson's infamous 1997 "bite fight" with Evander Holyfield had the most purchases, 1.9 million. The non-heavyweight records are the 70 million dollars off 1.4 million purchases from the 1999 Trinidad-De La Hoya fight.

De La Hoya will become the all-time pay-per-view money king if Saturday's fight has 965,000 pay-per-view sales.

His current 492 million dollars in such income ranks 53 million dollars behind all-time leader Tyson with Holyfield second to Tyson by only two million dollars. The liva gate of 19 million dollars in ticket sales will break the Nevada record of 16.8 million for the 1999 Lewis-Holyfield unification bout, although the heavyweights would still come out on top if adjusted for inflation.

LAS VEGAS, Wednesday, AFP