FanHouse

Oscar De La Hoya will box Steve Forbes Saturday night in a fight that no one really gives Forbes any chance of winning. Based on the odds at Bodog, you have to bet $2,000 to win $100 on De La Hoya, or you can bet $100 to win $1,000 on Forbes.

But Tim Dahlberg raises an interesting point: If De La Hoya were to lose, would this be not just the beginning of his farewell tour but also the end?

The most lucrative fight in boxing would be a De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather rematch, which everyone expects will happen in the fall. But such a rematch would lose any credibility it has now if De La Hoya were fighting the best boxer in the world while coming off a loss to a mediocre boxer whom people only know because he was on The Contender.

So would De La Hoya, knowing his Mayweather rematch had lost credibility, just decide to hang up the gloves? I think there's a chance he would, and that would be a sad way for De La Hoya to go out. Fortunately, it's not going to happen.