Oscar De La Hoya began the new year of 1996 with a record of 20-0, 18 by knockout. His first bout of the year was with Darryl Tyson on February 9, 1996, at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. On that weekend, I flew to Vegas to bet on the Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Scott Walker bout, on the over prop. After nearly a year long effort that was now near the end, I put what little money I had on Walker on the over wager. Sitting in my seat at Caesar’s Palace Sports Pavilion, I was close to vomiting when Walker folded like a tent in the second round, ending my journey in ruins. I walked out in disgust, never even bothering to watch Oscar, who was the main event. In his fight, De La Hoya took care of Tyson in the second round, but my ass was a long way from the arena by the time it happened.
I returned home to New Jersey disgusted, and looking for a diversion until lawn season started in a couple of months. I decided to take the huge pile of sports magazines I had in a closet, cut out the pictures, put them on poster boards in collage form, then laminated and labeled them. It was encouraging how beautiful they looked, and I saw it as a new part-time venture to make some money, with my new business, KJL Collages.
I had lots of boxing magazines to work with, and created a bunch of new boxing collages as well. My brother bought two from me to help me with my first sale, and it gave me a new creative spark to fill the void of going to Vegas to bet on fights.
Oscar’s next bout was scheduled for Friday June 7, 1996 against Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez, back at Caesar’s Palace again. To see this one, Bob Arum made it a closed-circuit event, due to the large amount of cable theft, and piracy of signals that hadn’t been addressed properly. My brother and I headed to the Pavilion in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to catch the action, and to root Oscar on.
Chavez had suffered a bad cut in training, and only one minute into round one, Oscar opened it with a right hand. The blood poured from his left eye, and it was over before it started. Julio tried to mount an attack, and Oscar boxed well, but it was over in the fourth. Joe Cortez had no choice but to call a halt, and I felt cheated from it all. It was how things went, but I was glad at least that De La Hoya was the victor.
I had pressing business on my mind after the bout, since I planned on heading up to Canastota, New York on Saturday morning to sell my collages at the Hall of Fame weekend collector’s show. After getting home at 1 am, I fixed a few pictures, then hit the sack to catch a few hours sleep. My alarm woke me up at 4, and I hopped in my Ford 150 truck, and began the 350 mile drive to Canastota from my home.
During the drive, the past year and a half had seemed like a dream, with all the ups and downs I had been through. I never figured I’d be at the Hall of Fame selling boxing collages I had made. Boxing had been a huge part of my life since the late 70’s, and now some 17 years later, it was even bigger than ever.
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