Boxing's Middle Class Gets a Whole Lot Richer

Addition of De La Hoya -- Among Others -- Renews Intrigue in Storied Division

LAS VEGAS -- Oscar De La Hoya is working out in a red, white and blue basketball shirt with the number 92 on the back. It is not, he said after a recent workout here, in tribute to a favorite player. Rather, it's a none-too-subtle reminder of the gold medal he won in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

De La Hoya nimbly stretches as he discusses those Olympics, contorting himself like Gumby, all the while flashing that million-dollar grin.

"That's a long time ago," he said, shaking his head. And a lot of weight as well. De La Hoya won his gold medal -- and earned his "Golden Boy" nickname -- by fighting at 132 pounds. When he steps in the ring Saturday night at MGM grand to fight Felix Sturm, he will be making his debut as a middleweight.

The move will bring perhaps boxing's biggest star to one of its most storied divisions -- and in so doing, promoters and observers hope, restore the allure to a weight class that has been home to such legendary fighters as Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns.

De La Hoya is not the only big gun going to the land of the 160-pounders, where Bernard Hopkins has reigned as the undisputed champion since September 2001. Also adding presence to the division are former 147-pound champion Ricardo Mayorga and Felix Trinidad, who comes out of a two-year retirement Oct. 2 to fight Mayorga.

The plan is for De La Hoya and Hopkins to meet on Sept. 18 in one of boxing's richest events should De La Hoya beat Sturm and Hopkins get past Robert Allen. Trinidad-Mayorga is scheduled for two weeks later. If the winners should meet, the purses -- and hype -- would only grow.

"These middleweights are scary guys," De La Hoya said, only half in jest.

Hopkins has held at least a share of the middleweight title since 1995, when he knocked out Segundo Mercado at USAir Arena. He has since made a record 17 successful defenses.

Hopkins is 39 and will be only four months shy of his 40th birthday if he and De La Hoya meet as planned in September. But he has gotten more dominant as he has aged and no one has given him a truly competitive fight in at least five years.

There have been the inevitable comparisons between a potential De La Hoya-Hopkins bout and Hagler-Leonard, the 1987 middleweight classic. Leonard won in a controversial 12-round decision.

But while Hagler was equally as dominant in his era as Hopkins is now and Leonard, the star from Palmer Park, was then boxing's glamour figure, there is a big difference between De La Hoya and Leonard.

Even Bob Arum, who promoted Leonard-Hagler and will promote De La Hoya-Hopkins, concedes that point.

"The thing that makes [a possible De La Hoya-Hopkins fight] compelling is that no one ever expected Oscar to make this move," Arum said. "He's not a big, huge guy who is naturally moving to another weight. And so the story is as much, 'How is he going to be able to handle someone so big and so strong?' as it is anything else."

The leap from welterweight, Leonard's natural weight, to middleweight, was not a big one. But De La Hoya began as a super featherweight and only weighed 128 when he won his first title in 1994.