Things got heated at the final press conference for Saturday’s super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jaime Munguia – but only one of the two fighters was involved in Wednesday’s dust-up.
Alvarez and his former promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, who now represents Munguia, continued their longtime feud when they nearly came to blows on the podium in Las Vegas. After taking exception to De La Hoya’s opening remarks, Alvarez had to be held back from taking a swing on stage.
“If he came closer, I’d fuck him (up),” Alvarez told reporters after the press conference, according to Arash Markazi of The Sporting Tribune.
After things had calmed down on the dias, the undisputed champion clarified that he called De La Hoya “a fucking asshole” in Spanish before getting up to confront him.
De La Hoya and Alvarez have been feuding for years. Their partnership ended in 2020, shortly after Alvarez sued De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions for breach of contract regarding his deal with DAZN.
Alvarez expanded on his feelings during a scrum with reporters, claiming that De La Hoya has tried to steal money from him and other fighters.
“He tried to steal money from his fighters. … I have proof,” Alvarez said, per Markazi. “He tried to steal money from me, from (Gennady) Golovkin, everything. But you know, he’s a fucking asshole. He don’t care about his fighters because he tries to bring all the attention for him. He don’t care about Jaime Munguia, his best fight … he don’t care anything about this fighter. He just care about him.”
De La Hoya felt he didn’t say anything out of line at the press conference and rejected Alvarez’s claims of impropriety.
“All I do is work for the fighter. All I do is make sure the fighter makes the most money,” De La Hoya told DAZN. “Him saying that I steal from a fighter? That’s defamation. I don’t like that.”
“The facts are the facts,” he added later, according to Michael Benson of TalkSport.com. “All I know is that he failed drug tests (in 2018). It’s defamation (to say I stole money). It’s very serious, that’s defamation. And do you know what? I have something coming for him.”
The Alvarez-Munguia card at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena gets started Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.
https://www.thescore.com/boxing/news/2905218/canelo-de-la-hoya-nearly-come-to-blows-during-heated-presser
