Oscar De La Hoya spent his Saturday night getting an impromptu facial treatment from his girlfriend Holly Sonders on Instagram Live discussing a different diet of topics.
Top of mind was the heavyweight tilt between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk, which took place earlier in the day in London and was shown in the United States around 2 p.m. PST in Los Angeles, where De La Hoya resides.
“I’ll tell you one thing. Joshua versus Usyk — nobody saw in the United States,” said De La Hoya following Usyk’s victory to capture the heavyweight titles. “What’s that promoter that doesn’t know how to and has no clue of what to do in the US? I think his name is Hearn or something.”
“Oh, Thomas Hearn,” said Sonders, a sportscaster who moonlights as a model.
“Yeah, Thomas Hearn,” De La Hoya continued. “Thomas Hearn — stay in the UK. Promote your fights. You have no clue what you are doing in the US. DAZN is doing the right thing by sticking with Golden Boy.”
Immediately after the barb, De La Hoya revealed he is close to finalizing fights between Ryan Garcia and Jospeh Diaz Jr as well as Jaime Munguia and Gabriel Rosado.
The former six-division champion and International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee also has a broadcast deal with DAZN, which is set to expire at the end of the year.
DAZN took a step back from its North American expansion strategy and instead pivoted its sports streaming service as a global company last year during the pandemic.
Hearn followed suit and has since significantly decreased his involvement in staging shows in North America.
Earlier this month, four-division boxing champion Mikey Garcia revealed that DAZN and Matchroom’s budgets didn’t allow for him to fight former world titlist Regis Prograis. Instead, Garcia was left to face little-known Sandor Martin on DAZN in Fresno, Calif. on Oct. 16 in a show promoted by Hearn.
“We were originally at trying to fight against Regis Prograis. The timing and schedules of DAZN and Matchroom didn’t quite fit with the budgets that were required and the dates and stuff,” said Garcia. “[Eddie Hearn] said DAZN didn’t have the budget for that type of fight [with Prograis]. That would require a different promotion, more time to promote, and more time to build up the fight. They didn’t have the time to do that.”
It was a feisty Saturday night for De La Hoya overall, who also traded punches with UFC president Dana White on Twitter regarding fighter pay.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or on www.ManoukAkopyan.com