“I Received Too Much Heat From Dana White” – Oscar De La Hoya Feels Ugly Repercussions of His Feud With UFC President Dana White Killed Golden Boy MMA

Former professional boxer and Golden Boy Promotions’ Oscar De La Hoya made an appearance on The MMA Hour. His promotion majorly hosts boxing events, but back in 2020, De La Hoya made a play towards MMA by setting up a trilogy bout between two former UFC champions (Tito Ortiz and Chuck ‘The Iceman’ Liddell).

The ‘Iceman’ lost via knockout and left a bitter taste as fans saw an aging Lidell step back when he really shouldn’t have. This move irked UFC President Dana White, who once used to manage both Ortiz and Lidell in the early days. This stirred the rivalry between De La Hoya and White even more, as the duo continued to attack one another.

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De La Hoya has been targeting the UFC for not offering adequate pay to the fighters, coupled with various other claims. Certainly, it compelled the 49-year-old to test the waters of MMA, but sadly, his promotion never hosted another MMA event again.

Oscar De La Hoya provided his take on why his PPV didn’t do too well

Speaking with Ariel Helwani, De La Hoya chalked out all the reasons behind the failure of Golden Boy MMA. He said, “I mean we had the arena packed, jam-packed, pay-per-views didn’t do too well. For certain reasons, certain cable operators weren’t really working with us. But I think it’s because I received too much heat from Dana White. I mean, that’s, that’s just literally the bottom line.”

Oscar De La Hoya also stated that he really enjoyed his time hosting the MMA event. He clearly could have continued to host more shows, if not for the aforementioned reasons, and his background in boxing.

De La Hoya has found the PPV model of Dana White and boxing to be quite similar

With just one event in the bag, De La Hoya definitely learned a lot more about MMA than he previously knew. He touched on the similarities between the sports in terms of business model and called them ‘fight game’.

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‘Golden Boy’ said, “It’s still the fight game, it’s still the same promotion. It’s still, you have fighters, you have the venues, you have the pay-per-views. You have it’s all the same, the business model is all the same.”

What do you make of De La Hoya’s statements on the UFC President? Share your thoughts in the comments below.