American Son

by Oscar De La Hoya

  Raul would tell me I had a gambling problem, but I was very stubborn. I was going to do what I wanted to do. I would tell him, “It’s only a hundred thousand. Don’t worry about it.”

  If I had a problem, I know where it started. My father has been a big gambler all his life. With him, it was always the horses. There were times, during my childhood, when he would gamble heavily, with his paycheck, either at the track or with the bookies.

  When I was about seven or eight, my father often took me with him on weekends to see those bookies. They had a place on Olympic Boulevard. We would go down an alley to a gated door, knock several times, and give a secret password. It was all so mysterious and fun for a young kid.

  The door would open and we’d be in this big room. There were guys spread out all over the place, smoking, eating, drinking, playing cards, and studying the racing form. There was even a small snack bar.

  Next to it was the spot where you placed your bets.

  As the only youngster in there, I became a runner. Guys would yell out, “Hey, kid, place this bet for me. Five on so-and-so, and place and show on number three.” They would add a few coins as a tip for me.

  My father also took my brother and me to the track. We’d be there all day while he played the ponies. We would run around collecting all the tickets people had thrown away, take them home, and count them. They were losing tickets, of course, but what did we know? We were kids.

  That’s probably where I got my taste for gambling, but strangely enough, I have never bet on the horses. Never had an interest.

  When I finally gave up gambling, it was because of Richard Schaefer, the financial genius who heads my business operations. He is such a positive influence on me, kind of like a father figure. I really look up to him.

  He would tell me, “You have to stop gambling. You’re a businessman now. Look at all the other businessmen you have come to know through all of our transactions. Do you see any of them gambling? No. You have a wife and family to take care of. You have to act responsible.”

  It took a while, but his message finally sank in. The fact is, I wasn’t making money at the tables. Here and there, yes, but overall, I figure I probably lost a couple of million dollars over the years. For what? I had worked so hard for my money, either by taking punches in the ring or in the business world, and I was just throwing it away. I’d look around the suite I was staying in at my Vegas hotel and think, It was my money that helped build this.

  It was time to start taking better care of my money. So I quit gambling cold turkey, but I have to admit, I missed it at first. The tables continued to tempt me because I was in Vegas all the time for fights. Whenever I walked by the casino, I could hear those dice calling to me. I would think, Maybe I’ll just play ten thousand. Just to get the feel of it. But with Raul by my side talking sense into me, along with Richard’s words still echoing in my head, I would fight off the urge.

  After a while, it became natural to just walk past the casino without so much as a second glance. Now I have no desire to gamble. It’s no big deal to me. When I’m staying in a Vegas hotel, I don’t even think about there being a casino downstairs.

  For me, the roll of the dice and the flip of the cards have lost their allure.

  XXVIII

  MORE MEN IN MY CORNER

  The scene can be the most dramatic in boxing. Two fighters have left their hearts and guts, and sometimes a good deal of blood, on the canvas for twelve often close, always grueling rounds.

  Their handlers and supporters, fans who have given their devotion and gamblers who poured in their cash, all have strong opinions about the outcome. But it’s the opinion of only three men in the arena that matters: the judges.

  As the scores are tabulated, the fighters, blood and sweat forming bizarre patterns on their battered skin, strut around the ring, waving their fists in elation over a perceived victory. Yes, both fighters. Both corners celebrate.

  Then the public-address announcer slowly reads the scores, stretching out the tension until you just want to grab those scorecards and read them yourself.

  Finally, after a last, torturous pause, he’ll say, “And the new welterweight champion…” or “and still the…”

  One fighter leaps onto the ropes to soak in the elation of the crowd. The other howls in protest, his anguished face searching in all directions for justice.

  In reality, it’s sometimes an act, the winning fighter trying to bolster a win he knows in his heart he didn’t earn, or the loser questioning a decision he knows is just. Fighters don’t need the judges to tell them what happened. They know. Win or lose, they can feel it. And they can see it in the face of their opponent. The judges don’t always get it right, but the fighters usually do.

  For example, when I fought Felix Sturm in my debut as a middleweight in 2004, even though I was given a victory by unanimous decision, I felt like the loser. I was taken aback by the decision.

  I had made it unnecessarily difficult for myself because I was so anxious to bulk up for the new weight. I ate everything I could get my hands on. I wanted to feel heavy, but I didn’t know how to handle the weight. It was the only time I ever ate out in restaurants during training camp, held at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida, rather than having meals cooked for me by my handlers.

  Sturm is a good boxer, but if I hadn’t been too heavy, I would have beaten him easily. Instead, I felt sluggish, I felt slow, I didn’t stay on my toes, and I didn’t hurt him because there was no snap to my punches. I just wasn’t into the fight.

  When the final bell rang, I went up to Sturm and whispered in his ear, “Good fight. You won.”

  I had reached my long-sought goal, winning a title in a sixth weight class by capturing Sturm’s WBO middleweight championship, but considering the circumstances, I didn’t feel much like celebrating.

  When I went back to the dressing room, Millie and my team were all cheering for me. I called Millie over, threw my arms around her, and started crying like a baby.

  “Why are you crying?” she asked.

  “I lost this fight,” I said, repeating myself over and over.

  She started laughing. The more I cried, the more she laughed. Finally, she got me laughing as well.

  “Look at you,” she said. “Look at how tight your trunks are around your middle. It wasn’t you up there.”

  She made me feel a little better, but I still walked out of there feeling like a loser.

  A lot of people feared I could wind up a loser when I fought Bernard Hopkins, one of the all-time-great middleweights, in 2004. He was clearly bigger than me, but I allowed myself to be talked into the fight by Bob Arum and matchmaker Bruce Trampler, who convinced me I could be successful and make boxing history.

  It didn’t seem like such a great idea, however, when Bernard and I were face-to-face in the middle of the ring listening to referee Kenny Bayless’s prefight instructions. I asked myself, What in the hell am I doing here?

  I actually felt I was in the fight until the end, which frankly surprised me. In the eighth round, Bernard tried to take my head off, but missed with about eight punches, an effort that seemed to leave him winded. That gave me hope.

  But in the ninth, he caught me with a perfect body punch to the liver that froze me. A shot like that tightens you up to the point where you can’t breathe. It feels like your insides are shrinking. You curl up into a ball.

  I went down, helpless on the canvas for the first time in my career. You feel like you have all this weight on you, preventing you from getting up. I was too focused on trying to breathe to even hear the count.

  Two seconds after referee Kenny Bayless counted me out, the pain started to subside. By the time I got up, I was ready to go again. If you take that one punch away, this was a fight I could have won. But there wasn’t anything I could have done. It’s a tough punch to recover from. It was so disappointing.

  I took 2005 off, enjoyed the birth of my first child with Millie, Oscar Gabriel, and then came back i
n 2006 to fight Ricardo Mayorga of Nicaragua, another Vargas with a better chin.

  He and I did our share of trash talking. He told me I was better-looking than his wife. “I’ve seen your wife,” I said. “You’re right. I am better-looking.”

  The conversation turned ugly, however, when Mayorga got graphic about my wife. Nobody had ever talked about Millie like that. That made the fight personal.

  Wednesday of fight week, I was waiting to go into a press conference when I was informed that Mayorga wanted to talk to me.

  About what? I asked impatiently

  He said he won’t fight unless he gets to talk to you, I was told.

  That got my attention. Mayorga, this big, tough guy, was crying when he came in.

  “My promoter, Don King, is not paying me enough money,” he said. “Pay me another four million and I will fight.”

  He already had a large purse, although I don’t know how much of it was King’s share. Nor was it any of my business.

  Richard threatened to sue if the contract was not honored. We left the room, went into the press conference, and a few minutes later, King and Mayorga took their seats on the podium as if nothing had happened, King waving his American and Nicaraguan flags and chortling as only Don King can.

  Mayorga has no concept of defense. You can see every punch coming. I could have taken him out in the first round, but remembering what he had said about Millie, I punished him for a while before ending it with a sixth-round TKO.

  After the fight, Mayorga told me, “I’m sorry what I said about your wife, but it was just part of the promotion.”

  A part I didn’t appreciate.

  Finally, there was Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2007. Everybody considered him the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and I always want to fight the best.

  But to fight the best, I needed the best trainer I could find. For six and a half years, that had been Floyd Mayweather Sr. But this was going to be awkward. A father training someone to beat his own son?

  Floyd Sr. kept insisting he wanted to train me for that fight. He kept telling the media, “I taught my son everything he knows, but I didn’t teach him everything I know.”

  That was a great sound bite, but as it turned out, he was even reluctant to tell me everything he knew. I would ask Floyd Sr. how to beat Floyd Jr. and Senior would tease me, saying, “I ain’t going to tell you.”

  He finally did tell me how he thought I could beat Junior at a meeting we had in Vegas after the fight had been set. But then Floyd Sr. added that, for him to implement the strategy as my trainer, it would cost me $2 million. Even though the money wasn’t an issue, as far as I was concerned, that was a sign he wanted me to turn him down. It was his out.

  Floyd Sr. insisted he wasn’t looking for an out, but then he looked at me in obvious anguish and asked, “What is my family going to think of me, all my sisters and brothers and my mom? This is my blood.”

  I couldn’t use him after that. I didn’t want to deal with the friction it would create. How could there not be friction? This was his son. I didn’t feel right about it. I think the father-son connection would have constantly been on my mind. And on his.

  I turned instead to Freddie Roach, one of the most likable, thorough, disciplined trainers in the business. I am sure Floyd Sr., was relieved. He never tried to contact me while I was in training camp to offer me advice. He stayed out of it.

  Floyd Jr.’s people brought Senior into their camp briefly to try to play mind games with me, but it didn’t work. Not with Freddie in command of my camp.

  Freddie’s client list has grown impressively in recent years as word has spread that he is one of the best, if not the best, trainers in the world. This a guy who even got Mike Tyson to listen to him, if only temporarily.

  I can’t say I learned a lot from Freddie, because, at this point in my career, nobody is going to teach me to drastically alter my style.

  I don’t want that. But Freddie instantly got my attention and my respect.

  Normally, you would be leery of bringing in a new trainer for a huge fight like the Mayweather match. But because Freddie is so perceptive, so ring savvy, he was able to absorb all of the nuances of my style quickly and merely fine-tune me for the fight.

  Freddie was quite a change from Floyd in terms of personality. Freddie Roach will never get up at a press conference and read poems. While Floyd had his game face on all the time in training camp, a drill sergeant in sweats, Freddie is easygoing. But I learned not to be fooled by that. Once we are in the gym, he is just as demanding as Floyd, a no-nonsense guy in his own way.

  Just doing a press tour with Mayweather Jr. can wear you out, because when you stand there, face-to-face for the photo op, he never shuts up. It gets so old.

  “I’m the best,” he says over and over. “I have a lot of money.”

  Mayweather is a very insecure person who needs a large entourage to reassure him he’s the best.

  No matter where we went on our tour, even his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, nobody was cheering for Mayweather. No wonder he needs such a large entourage.

  I knew I had to be aggressive in the fight, but it was going to be difficult to get to him because he fights to survive.

  My aggressiveness was working in the early rounds, but I abandoned it in the later rounds. I stopped throwing the jab because of a flare-up in my left shoulder where I had an old injury, a slight tear in the rotator cuff. The pain spread to my elbow, causing it to lock up.

  Floyd Sr. had told me, back when he was my trainer, that the jab neutralizes everything when it comes to his son and he was right. Floyd Jr. can’t avoid a good jab. He just can’t. He’s very vulnerable to that flicking, stinging glove in his face. It’s the one flaw in his game.

  Once I couldn’t throw my jab the way I wanted, everything went downhill. My heart, my mind, my body, all ceased to function at the peak level I had trained for. My confidence went out the window. I felt, if I didn’t have my jab, I didn’t have anything because the jab was the key to that fight.

  I was reduced to leaving my head out there as a target, letting Mayweather tee off on me with the hope he would break his hand, that he would do more damage to himself than he could do to me. He has a history of hurting his hands, and maybe it would happen again. I kept the bull’s-eye in front of him without fear of getting hurt because I didn’t feel any power when he hit me. I don’t know how he knocked out Ricky Hatton. I really don’t.

  As the rounds went by, however, the constant pounding seemed to have no ill effect on Mayweather’s hands.

  I lost the fight, but I know I can beat this guy. He wasn’t all that great.

  My disappointment at losing, however, lasted only as long as it took Millie to climb into the ring. She leaned over and whispered two magic words in my ear: “I’m pregnant.”

  The anguish in my face turned to a glow. The loss faded in significance. Millie and I were going to have our second child, a girl we would name Nina Lauren Nenitte. I was ecstatic.

  As the sting of that loss faded, I also became ecstatic at the thought of continuing my boxing career. I was determined not to end with that defeat. I feel I’m still growing and learning in the ring, and for that, I can thank so many of the men who have been in my corner over the years.

  Each of my trainers had his own methods of getting the most out of me. I, in turn, took the best from each of them:

  In the corner, the best was Floyd Sr. He would wake you up, slap you around, or rant and rave at the slightest sign of fatigue, lethargy, or overconfidence. Sometimes, it was worse facing Floyd in the corner than it had been facing my opponent in the middle of the ring. But it wasn’t all sound and fury. Once he had your attention, Floyd was very good at analyzing where you were in the fight, what your opponent was doing, and what you needed to do in the round ahead. It wasn’t just the clichés about throwing the jab and protecting yourself. Floyd was very specific.

  In training camp, the toughest was The Professor. You
had to be in shape for that guy. If you did something wrong, anything, he made you do it over and over and over. We would stop sparring every five seconds. He would say, “Nope, do it again. Again. Again.” I don’t think we ever finished a full, three-minute round. It was a very military approach.

  In terms of analyzing an upcoming opponent, I think Manny was the best. He was great at breaking down a fighter in terms of strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, and history. He would give you a true blueprint to follow.

  In terms of mental preparation, the best was Robert. He was always in my face, telling me, “You can do this. That guy didn’t train. Believe in yourself.” He would always remind me, “Do it for your mom.” He pumped me up quite a bit.

  I feel blessed to have had so many fascinating, knowledgeable, unique individuals in my corner over the years, guiding me, pushing me, soothing me, and inspiring me throughout my career. I couldn’t have done what I did without them.

  XXIX

  BARING MY SOUL

  From the fields of Tecate and Durango to the dazzling towers of Vegas, from the food stamps of my youth to an endless feast of unimaginable richness as an adult, I have traveled an amazing journey in my thirty-five years.

  There have been many lessons learned, the most indelible being that America is the only place in the world where I could have accomplished what I have.

  My family has shared in all of it. I would like to think that the far-flung Hispanic community has also felt a part of the life of this American son. After all, we are all America’s sons and daughters.

  There have been highs beyond imagination, but also lows, both in and out of the ring, that have challenged my strength and my character, but ultimately made me stronger.

  In my brightest moments, I have tried to share the glow with those near and dear. In my darkest hours, I have tried to shield them.