American Son

by Oscar De La Hoya

  In my first fight with Clancy, four months before my September 1999 match against Trinidad, I faced Oba Carr, and reinjured my left hand throwing a jab, the very first punch of the fight, but hung on to win by TKO in the eleventh round.

  My hand healed in time for the big match, leaving me beaming with confidence. I knew Félix Trinidad was a dangerous puncher, a strong fighter, but I figured he couldn’t be any tougher than Quartey. The guy who did bother me in that fight was Don King. He was the rival promoter for the match, the first in which I had been involved with him, and I have to concede, he intimidated me. He made me nervous.

  Trinidad didn’t bother me. He and his father, Don Félix, talked nasty in the press conferences. Bad stuff. The way I responded was to refuse to look Trinidad in the eyes. Never. That ate him up alive. It was my way of saying I didn’t respect him without saying anything at all. He would yell, “Look in my eyes.” I wouldn’t do it.

  I thought of Trinidad as coming out of the same mold as Rafael Ruelas, a strong puncher with poor balance. The trick was to take away Trinidad’s best weapon, the left hook, by moving side to side. That would neutralize him. If I could do it, I figured it would be an easy fight.

  I honestly believe if Gil Clancy hadn’t been in my corner that night, I would have knocked Trinidad out.

  I trained for that fight for three months and all I ever heard from Gil was, “Box, box, box.” If I tried to stay toe-to-toe with my sparring partners and exchange punches, Gil would stop everything and yell at me, “Damn it, you’ve got to box this guy. You’ve got to stay on your toes.”

  I never really understood why I couldn’t vary from that strategy if an opening presented itself. Yeah, I was fighting Félix Trinidad. So what?

  Robert didn’t buy into the fight plan at first. “No, let’s take this guy on,” he would say. “Come on, we can do it.”

  “No, damn it,” Gil would insist. “Oscar’s got to box.”

  With Gil’s words ringing in my head, that’s what I did the night of the fight, stay on my toes and box.

  It felt so easy. I was expecting a lot more from Trinidad. And I wanted to do a lot more, like move in and finish him off. But the few times I tried to mix it up and throw combinations, what would I hear when I went back to my corner? Gil and Robert would both ask, “What are you doing?”

  After the ninth round, as I sat down on my stool, Gil was going through his boxing mantra, and Robert was agreeing with him.

  “You want this fight? Just box,” they both said. “Do not stay in front of him. Don’t get hit. You have the fight won.”

  Even though there were three rounds left, a long time to be dancing around, I went out there like a robot and followed the strategy that had been pounded into my head for three months. I had been programmed to box and nothing else. It wasn’t as if I was hurt or had run out of gas and couldn’t physically do anything else. I was in tremendous shape.

  Nor was it necessarily the smartest strategy to just keep boxing. The more I stayed in front of Trinidad, straying from the directives I was getting from the corner, the better it was for me, because I could handle him. I could keep him at bay and throw my combinations, which were proving quite effective.

  It was when I started backtracking, as I had been ordered to do, that Trinidad got the momentum he had been looking for the entire fight.

  Those last three rounds went so fast it was all a blur to me. While those rounds were unfolding, I didn’t feel as if I was fighting differently than I had earlier in the match. But I have to admit, when I saw the tape, I realized I wasn’t being as aggressive, wasn’t throwing as many punches. But Trinidad didn’t do all that much, either. All he was doing was going forward. He certainly wasn’t inflicting any damage.

  When the final bell rang, the first thing I thought was that I should have knocked him out. I was mad at myself. But I had no doubt I had won the fight. I was happy as could be. At the very worst, I had won seven rounds to five. If I had not listened to my corner, used my old style instead, it would have been a walk in the park. But even so, what were they going to give Trinidad? Four rounds? Five?

  Trinidad knew. He came up to me while we were awaiting the judges’ decision and said, “Great fight. You won.”

  When the scorecards were read, announcing Trinidad had won by majority decision—judges Jerry Roth (115–113) and Bob Logist (115–114) gave it to Trinidad, while judge Glen Hamada (114–114) had it a draw—I was stunned, devastated. It was my first professional loss. I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock.

  When I got to my dressing room, I went crazy, punching the lockers. Gil was also devastated. I remember him in my dressing room afterward, head in his hands, tears in his eyes.

  Still, I have to admit, it wasn’t as bad as losing to Marco Rudolph eight years earlier at the world championships. This time I didn’t lock myself in my room for two weeks.

  The difference was, I had honestly lost to Rudolph and that hurt. This time I didn’t think I had been defeated fair and square. This time I thought Don King had something to do with those judges. Now that I’ve become a promoter myself, I realize how hard it would be to affect the judging.

  I’m not absolving myself of blame in the Trinidad fight. I made it closer than it should have been. I should have knocked him out. I failed myself and my corner failed me that night. My failure was in listening to them, in convincing myself they were right and I was wrong. It’s difficult to fight both your opponent and your corner.

  There was one bright moment after the fight, a moment I had been waiting for all my life.

  When the outrage had calmed, my father pulled me aside and said, “I’m proud of you. I’m proud of what you have accomplished.”

  That was the first time I had ever heard him say that and it came after my first defeat as a professional.

  Nothing would take the sting out of that loss, but those words certainly were a balm on my emotional wounds.

  There was also the consolation of knowing the fight was a tremendous financial success. It attracted 1.4 million pay-per-view buys, the largest total for a nonheavyweight bout in boxing history.

  The idea of losing a fight somewhere, somehow, had entered my mind long before I fought Trinidad. Prepare yourself. You’re not going to quit when it happens, I had told myself. Everybody loses. The question is, how are you going to come back?

  I assumed I could come back against Trinidad in a rematch, but it just didn’t materialize. Back then, I didn’t have anything to do with the negotiations for my fights. For the proposed rematch, it was all Bob Arum, Don King, and Don Félix. I was out of the loop. After a fight, I would go party and figure my promoter would cut me a good deal.

  If someone had come up to me and said, this is the money for a Trinidad rematch, this is the weight, what do you think, I would have said, “Let’s fight.”

  Even after the negotiations collapsed, I always assumed we would fight again at some point until Trinidad moved up in weight.

  When Bernard Hopkins fought him in 2001, I hoped, at first, Trinidad would knock Bernard out. That would enhance my performance since Trinidad didn’t touch me.

  But when Bernard exposed Trinidad’s weakness and defeated him, I realized Bernard saw my fight and learned from it. That made me proud.

  I haven’t lost any sleep over not fighting Trinidad again. I’m convinced I beat him and I’m content with that.

  XX

  SHOOTING FOR THE MOON

  They appeared out of the shadows on the day I put that gold medal around my neck and they would not leave.

  Along with the leeches I have already described posing as promoters, managers, and trainers, there were the financial parasites. They also wanted a piece of Oscar De La Hoya.

  While my fans merely wanted to look, or perhaps touch, the precious gold I had won at the Olympics, the parasites wanted to own the Golden Boy himself.

  They promised me and my family riches that would make the gold hanging down from my neck look dull
in comparison. Just as was the case with the boxing people who wanted to steer my career in the ring, there were lawyers, agents, accountants, and snake-oil salesmen who wanted to steer me to the top of the business world. They, too, waved wads of money, offered contracts, cars, and guarantees if only I would sign with them.

  The vultures had been circling long before I went to Barcelona, but I, with the help of my family, had been able to wave them off, telling them, and myself as well, that there would be plenty of time to cash in after I was triumphant at the Olympics.

  But now that time was at hand, the time to turn professional, the time to invest my faith and potential fortune in someone who could guide me through boxing’s treacherous terrain and deal with the sharks and the phonies, someone who was motivated by more than just greed, someone who genuinely had my best interests in mind.

  Many suitors called me, and a few even showed up on my doorstep. The standard line was, “You don’t have an agent? Well, I’m the guy. Let me tell you what I can do for you.”

  One guy came to the door wanting to sell T-shirts with my face on them.

  It was all so confusing for a struggling family from East Los Angeles. Who do we go with? Who do we trust?

  I knew all the horror stories. I had read about Joe Louis, one of boxing’s all-time greats, winding up as a greeter at Caesars Palace. I knew that most fighters squandered their money, saddling themselves with investments in the wrong deals, listening to the wrong advisers, hanging out with the wrong people, or marrying the wrong women.

  I was determined to be different.

  I was different all right. I picked Mike Hernández, owner of a car dealership, to be my business adviser.

  That caused a lot of people to raise their eyebrows. Unfortunately, that didn’t raise any concerns in my mind. At nineteen, I was too naive, too oblivious to the realities of finance, to even listen to those who questioned my odd choice.

  I met Hernández soon after I had won Olympic gold and the offers were flowing in from all directions. Somebody relayed one such offer that immediately got my attention: Chevrolet wanted to give me a purple Corvette.

  Great, where do I sign up?

  The name I was given was Mike Hernández.

  I went down to his dealership, Camino Real Chevrolet in Monterey Park, and he gave me the car. But he also gave me a spiel about what he could do for me, the bright financial picture I had, and how he could make that picture bigger and brighter than could anybody else.

  Hernández was smart. Once he’d sunk his hooks into me, his next move was to find a way to hang on to those hooks, no matter who else tried to lure me away.

  Who is close to Oscar? Oh yeah, the father.

  Sound familiar? That was the same strategy employed by my old managers, Mittleman and Nelson.

  Hernández introduced himself to my father and they became friends. Hernández was determined to keep my father close to him, figuring he’d keep me close as well.

  I can’t blame my father for that. Hernández and I were friends, too, and we had a good relationship for a long time.

  After I began making money, he told me, “Look, you have to start taking care of your money. You have to invest your money. Let me set up a corporation for you.”

  To show you how little I knew about finances, I thought, Wow, this is my savior. Look at the big store he has. He’s selling cars. Amazing. This is my golden ticket. He’s going to take care of me and I’m going to live happily ever after.

  It went on like that for years.

  So what did he do with my money? Kept it in the bank earning 4 percent interest. I might as well have been keeping everything in cash under my pillow.

  I can’t say Hernández broke any promises to me about expanding my income because no specific promises had ever been made.

  I wasn’t concerned. I was having a great time, doing my thing, living the good life. I was happy to just train and fight, relying on Hernández to take care of me.

  I didn’t even ask how much money I had. Nor did I ever worry about where it went and neither did the people around me, other than Hernández and my promoter, Bob Arum.

  When people would ask me where my money was, I would point to my house, dangle my jewelry, rev up the engine in my purple Corvette convertible, or mention my country-club membership in Whittier.

  Shortsighted? Definitely.

  Pretty common among fighters? Absolutely.

  When a fight was over and a commission official handed me a check, Hernández would take it.

  I didn’t even know what bank he put it in.

  What happened when I wanted cash? Say I wanted to go to Cabo San Lucas for a weekend and say I wanted to take $10,000 with me. I’d tell Hernández and he would have the money waiting, usually in cash, at the car dealership. I’d go down there and they would open their cash box, take out $10,000, and hand it to me, sometimes in an envelope, sometimes without an envelope.

  If I wanted to go again the following week, it was the same deal. Go down to Camino Real Chevrolet and punch my ticket.

  When I told Hernández I wanted to buy a Bentley, it turned out to be one of the most expensive Bentleys ever built. He told me he bought it through his company, but I wound up paying more than I would have if I had simply bought it off a showroom floor.

  That’s when I first started sensing something was wrong.

  Another example. I purchased a condominium in Cabo San Lucas from a good friend of Hernández. When I decided to sell the place, it turned out to be worth a lot less than I had paid for it.

  There was the one investment Hernández got for me: his car dealership. He told me, “The parts department makes a lot of money. You should invest two-point-two million. You are going to make a fortune.”

  When I signed a check for that amount, he told me, with a big smile on his face, “Great investment. Great investment.”

  Something else that struck me wrong was a comment Hernández made after one of my fights. He said, “Now you’re worth what I’m worth.”

  I had just made several million, I was filling up stadiums, selling pay-per-views, and I was worth the same as a car dealer? What’s wrong with this picture?

  Then there was my office at Hernández’s dealership, an office I was being charged rent to maintain. I later found out I was being charged thousands of dollars more than I charge for an office in the high-rise I now own in downtown L.A. at a prime location.

  When he tried to generate outside income for me, Hernández seemed out of his element. I had had a Budweiser patch on my trunks from the time I first stepped into the ring as a pro. By the time Budweiser wanted to renew, they were offering me $250,000 a year to make a few public appearances and keep that patch right where it had always been. As part of the deal, Budweiser would continue to feature me in Super Bowl ads, the best exposure possible for an athlete.

  The deal fell through because of Hernández’s insistence that the patch alone was worth $1 million and would not be available for less.

  All these incidents kept piling up, but I guess I was a slow learner.

  I also found I didn’t trust Hernández to adequately represent me in my career any more than I did in terms of my finances. He was my manager, but he wasn’t a boxing guy. Arum would go to him and say, “Look, this is what I’m going to pay Oscar.” Hernández, not having the experience or the knowledge to counter that offer, could only say, “Yeah, take it.”

  A perfect example was my fight against Tito Trinidad in 1999. I left tons of money on the table because, in my opinion, I wasn’t properly represented. That fight was purchased in 1.4 million homes. Even though I was no expert on the pay-per-view business, I started doing the math. I know Arum says he took the risk and got rewarded, but there’s never a risk with a fight like that.

  Arum and Hernández were so close. They never seemed to have issues with each other, while I always felt out of the loop. Hernández had control of my father and they both thought my father had control of me.

&nbs
p; The only thing Arum would ever say to me about Hernández was, “Oh, Mike Hernández is a great guy. You have a wonderful guy behind you.”

  I’m not implying Arum stole from me. I’m just saying he didn’t have a knowledgeable boxing guy pushing him to cut me a better deal.

  I didn’t talk to my dad or my brother about the situation. Nobody knew my business. Everything was always kept quiet.

  Besides, why would my father complain? He was a happy camper. He was getting 10 percent of my purse. He was handed his check and he could do anything he wanted with it. He had his own people to manage his money.

  What did Hernández get out of representing me? He would tell me he only wanted to take a dollar a year. That’s it.

  Again, I didn’t question him. I believed he was a genuinely nice guy and a powerful businessman in the community. That’s how I perceived him because he had this big lot with all those cars.

  But finally it all added up: the incident with the Bentley, the condo, the outrageous rent. Finally, some maturity and wisdom kicked in. I woke up one day and realized this was not the direction I wanted my life to go.

  It hit me that knocking people out was not going to assure me of long-term financial security. Why wasn’t my net worth growing at the same rate as my prizefighting purses? I know I’m a kid from East L.A. with hardly any education, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let people take advantage of me forever.

  I needed someone who could honestly answer questions about my financial future and I felt Hernández was no longer that person.

  Sitting in my apartment in Whittier, I made a decision from which I would not be swayed. I called Raul Jaimes, one of my oldest and most trusted friends, my right-hand man, and told him to come over. It was time for action.

  When he got there, he could see the determination on my face.

  I said, “Raul, I’ve had enough. Enough. Let’s go down to Camino Real Chevrolet and get rid of Mike Hernández and everybody else. I can’t reach my potential with a car dealer. I’m making all this money and he doesn’t know what to do with it. There’s no way I can grow like this.”