After winning the fringe WBO title against Jimmy Bredahl on March 5, 1994, Oscar returned to the ring on May 27 at the MGM Grand vs. Giorgio Campanella, and stopped him in the third round. Two months later he moved up to the lightweight division, and took on veteran Jorge Paez back at the MGM Grand in Vegas. De La Hoya easily finished Paez in two, and took home the vacant WBO Lightweight belt, his second in less than five months.
Oscar defended that title twice, on November 18 vs. Carl Griffith via a third round KO, and again on December against John Avila. ‘The Golden Boy’ dominated Avila at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, finishing 1994 with a record of 16-0, with fifteen knockouts.
On February 18, 1995, De La Hoya faced his toughest opponent as a pro, in John John Molina back at the MGM Grand. Having finally gotten rid of a pest of an ex-girl, I happily went over my brother’s apartment to watch this one on HBO with him. We were both huge Oscar fans, and were glad to see him win a unanimous decision, and take home the IBF Lightweight championship.
March was when I began my venture of betting on boxing to try to get out of the credit card debt I had accumulated. A large part of it was due to the psychopath I just unloaded, and was damn sure not going to let that loser ruin me financially. Things were going according to plan, and by May, I was excited.
The one opportunity I still kick myself for missing was in Oscar’s next bout on May 6, vs. Rafael Ruelas on pay-per-view. Watching the pre-fight buildup made it seem Ruelas was this tremendous boxer, and a real challenge to De La Hoya when they met. For some reason I bought this garbage, and passed on the opportunity to drop money on Oscar.
My brother and I watched this one at his apartment, and the moment the opening bell rang, I realized how crappy Ruelas was. He fought off balance, his footwork was horrible, and even Roy Jones remarked “Ruelas is so off balance, he’s going down Jim.” Oscar landed his jab with ease, and it was an obvious mis-match from the start. Just past the minute mark of round two, Oscar dropped Ruelas with a beautiful left hook. As soon as Rafael got up, De La Hoya nailed him with a right hand that put him on his ass again. Richard Steele rightly called it off when Ruelas got up, and Oscar jumped all over him, nailing him with a ton of unanswered blows.
The first thing that came to mind, was how easy a pay day it would have been if I had dropped $30,000 on Oscar. With him being only a slight favorite, I could have won the easily 12 grand of my entire life. My brother and I were both happy that Oscar had won, but I still kick myself to this day on a truly ‘Golden’ opportunity missed.
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