Is Oscar De La Hoya slacking from his duties ?

• Does Oscar De La Hoya want to be a real promoter or just be the figurehead for Golden Boy Promotions while everyone else at his company does the hard work? Although he has talked about rolling up his sleeves and getting serious, he has been MIA for some very important recent events. He didn't bother to show up for the Bernard Hopkins-Roy Jones fight in April, which needed every single bit of promotional effort that could be mustered. He was a nonentity during the massive Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Shane Mosley promotion, odd given that he could have offered keen insight because he fought both. He was nowhere to be seen during fight week except for a cameo at the postfight news conference. Last week, he didn't even show up in New York for the American debut of Amir Khan, whom Golden Boy considers one of its most significant signings. When you sign somebody you hail as a future superstar and he crosses the pond for the first time for an HBO fight at Madison Square Garden, shouldn't the face of the company be in the house to help promote the event? When I sat down with Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer in New York, I asked him about De La Hoya's noticeable absences and he was clearly uncomfortable with the question, perhaps because he's the one doing most of the work. He mentioned something about De La Hoya and his family recently moving from Puerto Rico back to Los Angeles full-time, but that rings hollow. You don't blow off fight week for Mayweather-Mosley -- the biggest fight of the year so far -- or Khan's important night because you moved. Schaefer stumbled a bit through his answer and I got a lot of him looking down and shrugging. I could tell he was frustrated and restraining himself from being critical of his partner and close friend. This week, De La Hoya was a no-show for the news conference in Los Angeles promoting Saturday night's fourth Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez fight at the Staples Center.

http://espn.go.com/sports/boxing/blog/_/name/rafael_dan/id/5204269/de-la-hoya-missing-action

I do remember Oscar appearing on George Lopez's show with Shane Mosley to promote the Floyd Mayweather fight, so he wasn't exactly a non entity like Dan claims.

interseting article..could something be in the wind like a ocar buy out or friction between oscar and some of the golden boy people..thats specualation on my part but oscar does like the limelight..

If this is true, then my respect for Richard Schaefer has risen. He gets alot of criticism because people think he's Oscar's errand boy, but it's clear he's a fan of sport and is working overtime to make good fights.

I think Oscar is just kicking back and collecting the $$$. That's why he pays Schaefer the big bucks to actually run the company.

That being said, the promotion for Izz-Raffy IV has been non-existant. There's been little spanish network promotion and virtually no mention of it on ESPN or some of the other networks that usually have fight ads (Versus,Spike). I hate to see these two go out into whats likely going to be the final fight, with no real fanfare.

Oscar is majority owner. Schaefer is his employee (and probably a minority equity partner) charged with running his interests. Oscar can do whatever he wants, it's his own company he's hurting if he doesn't use his star power to promote events.

Oscar knows what hes doing. Dan has a beard so he can't be trusted anyway. But seriously he should probably show his face more often because it could only help, unless of course you hate his guts.

I would rather Oscar be a figurehead than "rolling up his sleeves" if he doesn't know what he's doing. He's still young and a big name in the sport. If he wants to take his time and learn his new job that's great, and if he wants to hang out and get checks his presence is still good for the sport.

Dan's a hater. I think boxing writer's should know better than to take a fighter or former fighter's words at face value. Sure Oscar said he wanted to be more involved...what else could he have said?