After his easy knockout of David Kamau on June 14, 1997, Oscar De La Hoya returned to the ring in on September 13 against Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho in Las
Vegas. My brother came over watch it on pay-per-view, and I personally knew it would be a one-sided route. Oscar admittedly only trained 3 weeks for Camacho, who to me at that point of his career was a joke. Camacho lost every single round, got knocked down in the ninth, and lost a lop-sided unanimous decision. The skill difference between the two was huge, with Oscar the reigning welterweight king, and Hector a clown from the past.
In December, ‘The Golden Boy’ traveled east to Atlantic City to take on Wilfredo Rivera at Caesars’. I ordered the pay-per-view card on Directv as a diversion as much as anything, because I just wasn’t happy. I was broke, and having budding health problems, and looked at the bout to get my mind off of my troubles. Oscar won easily, dominating from the opening bell, before stopping Rivera in round eight.
Christmas of 1997 was one I would rather forget, and my hopes that the new year of 1998 would bring me good news, and some positive changes in my life.
Oscar took six months off before returning to action on June 13 against Patrick Charpentier at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. That same Saturday, I drove up to Canastota, New York to sell my boxing collages at the collector’s show during induction weekend. I sold a good amount of pieces, and left satisfied that I had done my best, and was going to try and make the 350 mile drive home to south Jersey right after the show ended at around 5 pm.
It wasn’t long into my drive home, maybe 100 miles in or so, that I realized I was too tired to keep going, and got a hotel room off of the interstate. After a nice dinner, I headed to my room, watched TV, and relaxed the rest of the night.
Refreshed the next morning, I grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonald’s and headed home. About seven miles from home, I grabbed lunch at Burger King, and arrived home to a blistering Sunday afternoon temperature of around 95 degrees. The first thing I did was head up to my bedroom, crank up the air conditioning, and watch the VHS tape in my VCR of Oscar’s fight the night before. What I recall most from that bout was the fact that the canopy above the ring holding the lights had collapsed from high winds, and it was adjusted to hang lower over the ring than normal. Oscar easily disposed over his French opponent in two short rounds, with talks of his next fight being a rematch with Julio Cesar Chavez in September.
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