Then again, the reason he owns an office building in downtown Los Angeles is because of his success as a fighter. “But it didn’t turn out so well for me bottling it up.”ĭe La Hoya has continued dealing with substance-abuse problems in retirement. “I mean, look, I grew up in that era, where you do suck it up,” De La Hoya said. In a sport this violent and brutal, isn’t it necessary to be able to suck it up the way De La Hoya did? But if ordinary people were to deal with the waves of emotions boxers experience on fight week, they would think they were in the midst a mental health crises. “The right thing to do is what Ryan did,” he said. “If he uses it the right way, it can help him to have a solid foundation for other things that might arise when he does become world champion.”ĭe La Hoya argued that what he did as a fighter - to suffer in silence, to “bottle it up” - is unhealthy. “I really think that on the contrary … this is going to really help him to really set the foundation and set the tone,” De La Hoya said. If he’s stressed now, what will happen when the stakes are raised, when he starts taking on fighters who actually have a chance of beating him? Garcia is still in the developmental stages of his career in which he is beating up carefully selected opponents. “Yeah, you ask yourself questions,” De La Hoya said. The mental-health break has made De La Hoya wonder whether Garcia has the necessary wiring to be a world-class fighter. Garcia resumed training later in the year with an eye toward a November showdown with JoJo Diaz, only to suffer a hand injury that required surgery. It’s not that I’m nervous or I can’t fight, I’m scared. “Anybody who knows what anxiety actually is. “I just needed to really take a step back because my anxiety was building up,” Garcia said. Garcia has taken an innovative approach, revealing the kinds of vulnerabilities that boxers from previous generations kept secret until they were physically diminished, financially destitute and reduced to selling their sob stories. That’s how fighters used to think, at least. “This is the sport where you have to be tough, you can’t crack under pressure, you have to be a man, you have to just be mentally, physically tough and if you show any kinks in your armor, people are going to walk all over you,” De La Hoya said. Their industry is often unfair and predatory. They are constantly being asked for money by family members and friends. Many of them are from impoverished backgrounds. What they have in common is an elevated level of resilience. Sports Hernández: Oscar De La Hoya chases a statement win over Vitor Belfort - and his own demonsĭone with repressing memories of a childhood sexual assault, Oscar De La Hoya is ready to fight Vitor Belfort and out for a win for himself. The uncertainty has added an element of intrigue to an otherwise unremarkable fight against the wild-punching Tagoe. The question is what the meltdown says about Garcia’s future in the sport, whether the popular fighter has the makeup to be the De La Hoya of his time. Step into a ring compromised and a fighter can quickly become an assault victim. The question isn’t whether Garcia made the right call to sit out a year. “But I think it’s going to be worth it one day.” “It was a hard year to endure with all the people talking their mess and having opinions on me and whatnot,” Garcia said. But the part-time model and social media influencer has already taken a 15-month sabbatical from the sport, withdrawing from one match last year to deal with what he described as crippling anxiety and another to recover from a hand injury. Garcia is 23, an age at which he should be fighting as often as possible. The rising star is not a finished product, though. Ryan Garcia, a 22-year-old from Victorville, was knocked down but recovered to beat Luke Campbell. Sports Hernández: Young boxer Ryan Garcia earns thrilling win, but he has work to do
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |