After his destruction of Patrick Charpentier on June 13, 1998 in El Paso, Texas, Oscar signed to fight a rematch with Julio Cesar Chavez on September 18 at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. The bout was dubbed ‘Ultimate Revenge’, after their first bout in June of 1996 ended because of cuts. Chavez gave De La Hoya absolutely no credit, side his punches didn’t hurt, and only lost because of a cut suffering during training. There was plenty of bad blood between both men by the time started.
I personally had had a trying summer, after having been diagnosed with testicular cancer on August 1. It was stressful getting my brother to work my lawn service, while I had surgery, and was making appointments to see different doctors to assess my treatment plan. By the end of the month, I went back to work, and gratefully received the good news that I would only need 4 weeks of radiation treatment, as opposed to chemotherapy.
At least I knew where I stood, and was scheduled to start daily 8 am radiation treatments the third week of September. It was good to know I could finish radiation, drive home, jump in my truck and still finish my lawns each day. It was just before they began that the rematch took place, but I had no plans to buy the pay-per-view for the bout.
At the time, we still had cable TV in all of our rooms, with Directv only connected to my 46″ inch TV in my upstairs mancave. You could still see a scrambled version of pay movies on cable, even though the picture barely stood still long enough to see anything. You could hear whatever you were watching perfectly however, so I decided to listen to the fight, as if I was listening to it live on the radio. Oscar dominated from the opening bell, won most every round, until Chavez quit on his stool after the eighth round. I vividly remember Larry Merchant screaming “I am shocked! Shocked that Chavez has quit!” I always looked at Chavez that way, and loved the fact that despite his post-fight bitching, quit like a coward in his corner.
For me personally, I finished radiation treatments on October 23, 1998, and was given a clean bill of health. Thank God I have never had any after affects, and 1998 ended a lot better than it started.
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