Oscar De La Hoya isn’t entirely sure cross-promotional fights with Premier Boxing Champions can be made through no fault of his own, the promoter said.
In a recent interview, the founder and director of Golden Boy Promotions expressed some frustration with the matchmaking process involving some of his fighters, and placed the blame squarely on PBC creator Al Haymon.
De La Hoya promotes popular lightweight contender Ryan Garcia and former 154-pound champion and current middleweight contender Jaime Munguia, among others. Both Garcia and Munguía may be in big fights in their respective divisions, but some of their key opponents are aligned with rival team PBC, which, like Golden Boy, has its own exclusive broadcast partnerships.
Golden Boy has a production deal with DAZN and PBC has separate deals with Showtime and Fox. Garcia has long been mentioned along with Gervonta Davis, Haymon’s PBC-backed Baltimore thumper, while Munguia has been mentioned along with middleweight champion Jermall Charlo, another Haymon client.
In a recent Instagram live session, De La Hoya talked about making a delicious showdown between Garcia and Davis. The two fighters have been making headlines again recently, with both sending out tweets suggesting that actual negotiations for them to face off at the end of the year were underway.
De La Hoya acknowledged that while he would “try” to make the best possible fights for his fighters, he said Haymon impedes his efforts. De La Hoya has repeatedly characterized Haymon as an obstructionist over the years and more recently said Haymon was to blame for his inability to agree to a Charlo-Munguia fight. Haymon, who is famous for not speaking to the media, used to work closely with De La Hoya years ago, before they had a bitter falling out in 2014.
“Any type of Al Haymon is going to be a problem to make [a fight] for Al Haymon,” De La Hoya said. “But I’m going to try to make the best fights possible. I bring you guys [Dmityr] Bivol versus ‘Lefty’ [Ramirez] so it’s going to be exciting. I’m working on Jaime Munguía. Other. Jaime Munguia wants to fight [Jermall] chat.
“Again, Al Haymon, you know. And it’s sad, because, it’s sad, I’m sure Charlo wants to fight the best. All these fighters want to fight the best, man, but this is the truth, God’s honest truth.”
