Tonight’s Golden Boy on ESPN card has taken a major blow. Rising super bantamweight contender Diego De La Hoya and his famous last name were the entire draw to the show, but reportedly he was on course to miss weight so badly that his fight has been scrapped entirely.
Diego De La Hoya (20-0, 9 KOs) is coming off the best performance of his career on the undercard of the Gennady Golovin versus Canelo Alvarez middleweight championship pay-per-view in September. What looked like an interesting test on paper against unbeaten former titleholder Randy Caballero turned into a rout by night’s end with young Diego looking like the potential star that his last name would suggest.
Obviously, this is not a good follow up. De La Hoya is 23 years old now, however, so this could simply be a matter of him growing out of the super bantamweight division before he really has an opportunity to fight for a title there. It happens. I am definitely concerned with the idea of Diego De La Hoya as a featherweight though. At super bantamweight the nephew of legend and promoter Oscar De La Hoya brings little power on his shots. This might become more of a problem against bigger men.
The show will go on tonight with a pretty horrible main event in Carlos Morales (16-2-3, 6 KOs) against Dardan Zenunaj (14-3, 11 KOs) at junior lightweight. Morales is a little better than his record suggests as he started his career 0-1-3 before winning sixteen straight. Last time out he lost a decision to now world titleholder Alberto Machado. Zenunaj was briefly a fighter of note when he was a one loss prospect who upset Bryant Cruz, but both Cruz and he have proven to be below any real prospect level.
Golden Boy also does have two quality prospects on the show in featherweight Joet Gonzalez (17-0, 9 KOs) and super flyweight Joshua Franco (12-0, 6 KOs) at least, so hopefully they can make the main card now to salvage this ever so slightly. Unfortunately, even then they are in super soft. Gonzalez, 24 and from Los Angeles, will meet Mexican journeyman Isao Gonzalo Carranza (15-10-1, 9 KOs), a man who has failed to pick up a win in each of his last five fights. Franco, 22 and from San Antonio, meets 9-1 Carlos Maldonado. That doesn’t look bad on paper until you realize Maldonado’s opponents have a combined record of 20-76-4. His loss was to a 3-2 fighter.
Nevertheless, the show goes on tonight at 10:30 PM Eastern on ESPN2.
