Oscar De La Hoya vs. John Avila, billed as The Golden Return, was a professional boxing match contested on December 10, 1994, for the WBO lightweight title.[1]
Background
After having defeated former 2-time featherweight champion Jorge Páez in July 1994 to win the vacant WBO lightweight title and thus become a 2-division world champion at only 21-years old, Oscar De La Hoya was scheduled to return to his hometown Los Angeles on October 8, to make the first defense of his newly won title at the Grand Olympic Auditorium where he had won his first world title earlier in March earlier in the year. However, after contracting an unspecified virus that left him weak and unable to train for over a week, De La Hoya pulled out of the fight resulting in its temporary postponement.[2] The fight was considered to be moved to the undercard of the James Toney–Roy Jones Jr.super middleweight title fight where De La Hoya was scheduled to make a title defense against a yet-to-be-named opponent on November 18, but Carl Griffith was eventually named De La Hoya's opponent for that date. After De La Hoya easily dispatched Griffith in three rounds to make the first defense of his lightweight title, it was announced that the De La Hoya–Avila fight would be take place on the rescheduled date of December 10, only three weeks after his fight against Griffith.[3]
The Fight
After having dispatched his three previous opponents within three rounds, De La Hoya ran into a game Avila, who took the favored champion to the ninth round. Though De La Hoya dominated the majority of the fight, winning every round on two scorecards and all but one on the third, minus the eighth when he was deducted a point for a low blow, he was unable to finish Avila off until about 2 minutes into the ninth. De La Hoya had raised a welt on the right side of Avila's face near his eye which swelled massively as the fight went on. Then in the ninth, a De La Hoya barrage caused a massive cut on the welt that caused Avila to bleed profusely. Raul Caiz Sr. put a halt to the fight and had Avila checked by the ringside physician who quickly determined that Avila could not continue and stopped the fight, giving De La Hoya the victory by technical knockout.[4]
