Oscar De La Hoya is looking to fight Conor McGregor if he makes a comeback to boxing. The eight-time WBO, IBF, and WBC champion has been training privately, and on Monday he made some bold claims on how quickly he thinks he can beat the UFC lightweight champion.
“I know I can take out Conor McGregor in two rounds. I'll come back for that fight. Two rounds. Just one more [fight]. I'm calling him out. Two rounds, that's all I need. That's all I'm going to say. You heard it on Golden Boy Radio. Two rounds, that's all I need."
De La Hoya retired from boxing in 2009 after losing a fight to Manny Pacquaio the previous year. There was speculation at the time that the boxer had lost a step, which contributed to him walking away from the sport — but now at age 44 he’s looking to make a comeback.
"You know I'm competitive. I still have it in me. I've been secretly training, secretly training. I'm faster than ever and stronger than ever.”
There’s no time frame for a return right now, or whether the UFC would be interested in another co-promotion with De La Hoya’s “Golden Boy Promotions.” However, these are the same hurdles the UFC needed to work out in order for McGregor to fight Floyd Mayweather, and that got ironed out. The question is whether the public would be interested in seeing De La Hoya-McGregor.
ESPN reports the only way a fight would happen is if McGregor once again agreed to fight in a ring, rather than a cage.
"Let's get it straight: In the cage, he would freaking destroy me. He would freaking destroy me. Only in the ring," De La Hoya said.
De La Hoya has flirted with the idea of returning to the ring in the past, most-recently in 2015 — but that never came to fruition.