Canelo Alvarez apparently has few regrets about cutting ties with his former promoter, Oscar De La Hoya.
In a recent interview, the undisputed 168-pound champion from Mexico reflected on his experience being promoted by De La Hoya, the Hall of Fame fighter and founder of Golden Boy Promotions, and much of Alvarez’s retelling, not surprisingly, was negative.
Alvarez acrimoniously parted ways with De La Hoya and Golden Boy in 2020.
In the interview, Alvarez called De La Hoya a “hypocrite” and pointed out how he showed loyalty to the promoter a decade ago by sticking with him in a period when many of Golden Boy’s top talents left the company for Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions.
Alvarez is currently signed to Haymon’s PBC on a reported three-fight deal, the first of which kicks off Sept. 30, when Alvarez defends his four 168-pound belts against undisputed 154-pound champion Jermell Charlo at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“I think if you see everything he’s doing … We are the only ones that stayed with him when everybody left him,” Alvarez said of De La Hoya on The Breakfast Club. “Because I’m loyal. I treat everybody like a family. And I do the same thing with Golden Boy, but I don’t think he’s that kind of person. I don’t know if he’s a good person or not but he’s not the person he shows. Yeah, he’s all business. He’s like a guy who says … I never forget he said, ‘You need to give them (fighters) a little [taste so that they come back for more]. When I heard that I took it [to heart]. A lot of things. I don’t wanna to talk a lot about him.”
De La Hoya’s personal issues have been well documented. Last month, he premiered his soul-baring documentary, The Golden Boy, on HBO, to critical acclaim.
“I think he have a lot of issues,” Alvarez said of De La Hoya. “Oscar have a lot of issues with his life. I don’t really know. When I fought with Floyd Mayweather [in 2013] he was in rehab two days before the fight. Kind of bad. I don’t know really what happened there.”
“I think the same thing [that De La Hoya always seems to be lying],” Alvarez added. “He say a lot of things and he’s a hypocrite. I think he’s that kind of person.”
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.