Oscar In A Cakewalk Over Forbes

Let's look on the bright side. At least they didn't put it on PPV.

Oscar De La Hoya looked sharp, in shape and rust-free in a glorified sparring session against Contender alum Steve Forbes at the Home Depot Center soccer field in California on Saturday night.

The judges saw Oscar a runaway winner, by scores of 119-109, 119-109, 120-108.

Forbes fought in spurts and landed some clean shots against Oscar, and viewers may well have been put off by his habit after several rounds of nodding at and tapping Oscar, as if to say, Hey, good work. Oscar's face did indicate afterwards that he'd been in a tussle, it must be noted, however, so it can't be said that Forbes came in and merely went through the motions for the best purse of his career.

 HBO's Manny Steward thought Oscar looked solid, and believes that many fight fans will now give ODLH a better shot at bettering Floyd Mayweather in their September rematch. Larry Merchant, meanwhile, didn't act as enthused, and told viewers that promotional wizardry will be what sells that re-do.

I admit that I hoped for more from Forbes, who did not fight with the balls-out effort that he told TSS he would. He didn't look as outclassed as the last Contender alum we saw in over his head, Alfonso Gomez, but he did not drape himself in glory with this outing. As usual, our astute readers, on the Prediction Page, mostly pegged the match, and foretold what would go down.