Oscar De La Hoya has made his opinions clear after the announcement of Zuffa Boxing’s first two cards left some fans feeling underwhelmed.
When Dana White announced the formation of Zuffa Boxing, he made a lot of promises. Specifically, the UFC boss claimed it would only recognise the original eight weight classes that existed upon boxing’s inception, that there would be just one belt per division, and that none of today’s sanctioning body titles would be part of the equation.
This UFC-style model looked interesting on paper, but putting it into practice was never going to be simple. Still, White claimed that his new company would make these huge changes to the boxing landscape and essentially take the sport in a new direction.
So, when its first two cards were announced, some fans were left very disappointed.
The first show features Callum Walsh and Carlos Ocampo as the headline act in a solid super-welterweight meeting that is ideal for Walsh’s development at this stage in his career.
However, Ocampo’s last fight on the big stage ended with him suffering a first-round knockout at the hands of Tim Tszyu, which was over two years ago. With his other losses being a decision to Sebastian Fundora and another first-round knockout defeat to Errol Spence Jr., Ocampo may now only sit as a fringe world level operator. So, how significant of a test it actually is for Walsh is certainly up for debate.
The second card has Jose Valenzuela facing off against Diego Torres in its main event, with the undercard reported to include an intriguing super-welterweight scrap involving Serhii Bohachuk and Radzhab Butaev, whilst Radivoje Kalajdzic takes on Oleksandr Gvozdyk at 175lbs.
Following the announcement of the shows, former six-weight world boxing champion and rival promoter Oscar De La Hoya took to Instagram to reveal how underwhelmed he is by Zuffa Boxing’s initial cards.
“After all of the talking that TKO and Zuffa have done over the last year, the time has come for their huge debut! All of these promises that Dana [White] made about how they are going to reinvent the wheel and take over boxing, fix the sport, make their own rules, their own ring and their own belt – it turned out to be all smoke and mirrors.
“Zuffa finally announced their first card, filled with names that I have literally never heard of and they are hosting it in the UFC’s basement, which holds a few hundred people.”
To hear the full list of criticisms from Oscar De La Hoya, you can watch the segment in its entirety here:
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