[TV static drones]
[bright tone]
- I've never told anybody about my life,
about my emotions, about the reality
of what really happened, what has happened
in my life, how I feel.
These are my true emotions. These are my feelings.
There's no fucking sugarcoating anything.
I'm just tired of it, so I have to speak.
I have to say it out loud to free myself.
That's the only way.
That's the only fucking way because the last 45 years
have been pretty dark.
[somber music]
- That's Oscar De La Hoya, from East Los Angeles,
at 5 feet, 9 inches tall, and just 19 years old.
He comes here without his most ardent supporter.
Mom Cecilia died two years ago from cancer at age 38.
- Before my mother passed away,
she told me she wanted the gold medal.
- This is the gold medal fight.
I think everyone, certainly in the U.S.,
knows the emotion that Oscar De La Hoya
carries into the ring.
♪ ♪
- I wanted to trick people into believing
that I'm the perfect fucking individual.
- The death of his mother, promise made,
heck of a burden on just a 19-year-old kid.
- The media created this person,
but I didn't know who I was.
- This is a family fight.
The entire De La Hoya family, even back in East Los Angeles,
grandfather from Mexico is there watching.
- He knows it's on the line.
- Oh!
Huge left hand.
- I'm different.
I'm not like you.
I'm not like a lot of people.
[cheers and applause]
- East Los Angeles is now on the edge
of their collective chairs.
Oscar De La Hoya has kept the promise to his mother.
- Oscar De La Hoya, he not only brought home the gold,
he brought honor to his mom's memory.
- Everyone thought they knew me.
It was just all a lie because that's what I do.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
But the truth always comes out.
♪ ♪
[police siren wailing]
I grew up in an apartment.
About 4:00 in the morning, my father would kick the door.
And that was my call. That's my call.
You got to wake up. Time to run.
[tense music]
At ten years old, I was on a mission.
I've already been programmed to be a fighter.
♪ ♪
Running through the streets of East LA was dangerous.
First of all, you don't have the right shoes on,
so you can hear the pavement just pounding.
You're in the neighborhood where people are still up,
partying, and there's gangs.
And you're hoping that somebody doesn't run out
and grab you, or punch you, or hit you.
One time, I see these dogs.
And all of a sudden, one barks.
And then all of them just come straight at me,
and I climbed the cemetery fence.
So I remember just hanging on,
with my hands just being bloody.
[dogs barking]
Walking up the block back to my house,
I would hear this angelic voice.
- [singing in Spanish]
- It was my mother singing.
- [singing in Spanish]
- She would be cooking for me and singing Spanish songs.
She used to sing with a lot of passion.
It's almost like if you're crying.
- [singing in Spanish]
- Listening to my mother sing, I always felt safe.
It's a beautiful thing to listen to when you're a kid
and all you want is a hug.
- [singing in Spanish]
[choir softly vocalizing]
- We were friends, but when we got together,
we never really talked about the boxing.
We just talked about having fun.
We talked about, you know, "Hey, I have a dollar.
Let's go to the store."
Because we were always starving,
and we were always broke.
My very first experience with boxing
was watching the Olympics, 1984.
Paul Gonzales, boxer from East LA,
was competing for the gold medal.
- Paul Gonzales won the gold medal.
And so I thought to myself, I want to be that hero
for my city, for East LA.
I had an Olympic poster of the little mascot
holding little boxing gloves, and I signed it,
"Oscar De La Hoya, Olympic Champion."
My first autograph that I had ever given was to myself.
That's when I knew, OK, you know,
I'm fighting for something.
You know, I have a goal. I have a vision.
[school bell ringing]
- We were in the sixth grade,
and our teacher gave us an assignment,
what you want to be when you grow up?
Kids went up. "I want to be a doctor."
Another one went up and said, "I want to be a dentist."
So then Oscar went up, and he said that he wanted
to be an Olympian, and he was going to win
the gold medal as a boxer.
And he was going to be champion of the world.
We laughed out loud.
[somber music]
- All the kids just started laughing.
I'm this shy kid.
It devastated me.
What are you laughing at?
But the person who laughed the most was my teacher.
[laughter]
I'm being serious.
This is my dream.
But it became a nightmare.
♪ ♪
I told myself, I'm gonna show you.
♪ ♪
You're gonna respect me.
♪ ♪
- The teacher kept him after class.
And I went back, peered through the window.
♪ ♪
He was crying.
♪ ♪
- Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our descent
into Los Angeles, please make sure your seat backs...
[percussive music]
- When we landed, they opened the doors to the airplane.
There's people everywhere.
And I'm looking at the stewardess like,
oh, my God, who are they here for?
And she's like, "They're here for you."
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
People asking for autographs, taking pictures.
Girls are screaming.
My life just changed completely,
right there in that moment.
♪ ♪
The world fell in love with my story.
And I felt it.
I felt like a celebrity.
I felt like a star.
♪ ♪
- When he came back from the Olympics, I was ten.
I was just overwhelmed because there was
so much media and people cheering for him.
And at one point, I was just like, what's going on?
Like, why is everybody cheering for my brother?
- There's a caravan of cars going back to East LA,
the News, Channel 7, Channel 4.
♪ ♪
People were waiting for me outside of my house.
♪ ♪
And I wasn't that shy boy anymore.
I wasn't that kid that is gonna turn red.
I instantly played the part.
I'm representing East Los Angeles.
- Yeah!
- I'm representing Latin Americans,
and I'm representing Mexicans.
- Yeah.
- The best part of East LA, Oscar De La Hoya!
[cheering]
♪ ♪
- Everybody loved me.
♪ ♪
- When I got home, all I can think about was my mother.
[indistinct chatter]
And I wanted to have a moment to just--
to feel it all, you know?
But I couldn't.
- He's won our hearts recently when he fulfilled a promise
to his mom to win the Olympic gold medal.
Please welcome Oscar De La Hoya.
[cheers and applause]
[triumphant music]
♪ ♪
Good to see you.
Congratulations on the gold medal there.
Boy, that's--can I-- - Sure, of course.
- That's my second one there I've touched.
We had Mark on the other day. Boy, that's--
- Yeah, kind of heavy.
- Oh, yeah, you get back trouble if you
wear that too long, yeah.
And you were--you went to the White House yesterday, right?
- Yes, we went to the White House
and had a great time there.
- Oh, yeah?
- I went to the restroom, and it was like--
I mean, to be seated on the seat where George Bush sits--
[laughter]
- He was an excellent guest.
He was human.
And you know, that connection with his mom
gave him a real empathy.
It made him vulnerable but tougher.
[soft music]
- It was instant celebrity, instant pride from everyone.
He belonged to East LA. He did it for us.
- Now I'm like a local celebrity,
and I'm in shock.
I was walking around with my gold medal around my neck
everywhere I went.
People would recognize me, and they would ask me,
oh, my God, where's your gold medal?
And I would just pull it out. It's right here.
♪ ♪
My mother was my-- is my biggest boxing fan.
And I mean, unfortunately, she passed away.
And the way we made the promise together
about me winning the gold medal years before--
I mean, when I started boxing,
she used to cheer me on all the time.
And now the promise I made, I fulfilled my dreams,
and I really can't have anything more in life.
- Oh, that's great.
- For a few days after getting back from Barcelona,
I finally went to her grave to talk to her.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
I accomplished my mom's dream. I have my gold medal.
♪ ♪
But now I have promoters calling our home,
managers putting pressure.
I felt that burden.
And I was like, I don't know.
I don't know if I want to do this.
♪ ♪
I want to live this lifestyle that I have in East LA,
little celebrity.
But at the same time,
I did not want to disappoint my father.
- I didn't know how to talk to my father
to tell him how I felt, and keep in mind,
it was supposed to be my brother, not me.
♪ ♪
- I used to use him as a Guinea pig.
[laughs] You know?
I used to love playing baseball.
And I used to use him as a catcher.
You know, he hated it, but I used
to drag him out into the driveway behind the gate
and make him catch tennis balls or whatever we had.
I used to make him cry because he didn't want to do it,
but I had to practice, right?
I was kind of like the bully around the block.
- Joel was a cool guy.
He started getting into punk rock music.
He started buying all these shirts with bands on them.
So Oscar thought it was cool to wait
till his brother went to school,
and then we would get his shirts.
Hey, yo, wear this one. This one's cool.
- And all of a sudden, I fucking feel a big hit
right in my leg, like a Charley horse.
Boom. Oh, shit.
And it's my brother, and he's like,
"Take that fucking shirt off. That's my shirt."
And my buddy, Eric, he just like took off running.
I wanted to be like my older brother.
- I started boxing before he did,
and he started following me.
- I would be curious, like, where is he going?
He was going to a boxing gym.
♪ ♪
And he was good, like really good.
♪ ♪
I'm thinking, wow, my dad's so into him.
- I loved being in the gym.
I loved chingasos, beating the shit out of someone.
But I was hot and cold.
I was off and on with the sport.
One of my uncles gave me a motorcycle,
bought me a motorcycle, a small Yamaha 80
because I was threatening to quit.
He really thought I was going to become this great boxer,
but I just hated running in the mornings.
My dad used to give me crap about that all the time.
- When my father was a kid,
his father tied him up to a tree with chains
and would whip him if they didn't want to go up
and herd the cows at 12:00 midnight.
- By all means, he was gonna try to get me
to do what he thought I was excellent at.
I didn't have the heart for it.
- One day I come home from school,
and that motorcycle, it's gone.
My dad sold it.
- So I was my dad's last resort.
- Every time we would congregate,
you know, the uncles would have beers,
and they would get drunk, and out come the gloves.
When they call my name, I'm just frozen.
Like, I have to fight? Like, what is this?
And then... [impact]
Punched in the face, then I start crying.
Instinctively, I run to my father.
But my father told me, be tough.
- And then he tells everybody, "You watch.
"In a few months, I'm gonna take him to a boxing gym.
"And just give me a few months.
"We'll be back right here at the same place,
and he's gonna get revenge."
♪ ♪
I remember walking into the boxing gym,
but with a new perspective.
And I'm thinking to myself, this is my chance.
My first trainer asked me to get in a boxing stance.
Since I was left-handed, my instinct
was to stand like this.
But it was too difficult for him to train me that way,
so he said, "Why don't we just switch you over?"
♪ ♪
So now my power punch is the leader.
Converting myself into a regular stance
changed my destiny.
At six years old, I had my first amateur fight.
I had no gear, no nothing,
so I put on my brother's shoes,
which were like four sizes bigger.
The boots would flap up on the tip.
I had huge tube socks.
The shorts looked like a skirt.
The gloves were so big.
I mean, I looked like a little clown.
But now I'm a fighter.
[bell rings]
[dramatic music]
I win my fight, and I get out of the ring,
and one of my uncles hands me over like 50 cents.
And I'm like, whoa, what is this?
♪ ♪
50 cents, like, now I can fucking buy whatever I want.
Get me a pack of Starburst, and you feel like
you're on top of the world.
If I keep winning, I can be the cool kid
with a few quarters in my pocket.
Huh.
Started knocking kids out.
And for the first time in my life,
people were telling me, "You did good, mijo.
You did good. You know, we're proud of you."
- Number one! East Side!
- Wow, OK.
I love this feeling.
- Ladies and gentlemen, your winner is Oscar De La Hoya.
[cheers applause]
♪ ♪
- But my father would always expect me to do better.
♪ ♪
My father, when I get home from training,
he tells me what I did wrong,
and how I should throw right hands for more power,
and the left hook for more power.
It's also in the family.
My grandfather boxed, and my father also boxed.
So I guess it's my turn to do the job.
I was innocent, naive.
I wasn't exposed yet to the dark side of boxing.
My father, he was orchestrating everything,
and managers and promoters would have to go through him.
- They promised me a million dollars,
a brand-new car, a brand-new home.
But then my father told them, we need Bob Arum.
He was the messiah of boxing.
This man promoted Muhammad Ali.
- Pay-per-view will be the coming force in boxing,
not network television.
That's gonna be a thing of the past.
- He knows everything there is to know
about making a world champion, making him popular,
making him a lot of money.
[birds cawing]
- I was at my home on the beach.
These two fellows that I knew in boxing,
fringe sort of guys,
Steve Nelson and Robert Mittleman,
asked to come to see me.
They were about to sign an agreement
to manage Oscar De La Hoya.
But Oscar's father, Joel, told these two fellas
he wouldn't allow them to be managers
unless Top Rank, my company, agreed to promote Oscar
because I had promoted the four kings,
Hagler, and Leonard, and Tommy Hearns,
and Roberto Duran.
So Oscar really did not resonate with us,
other than the fact that it was a good story,
the fact that his mother had died,
that he had dedicated the gold medal to her.
And I told them that I was prepared to do it.
Mittleman was so excited, with all his clothes,
he ran and jumped into the water.
[upbeat music]
- I was a contract publicist,
and I worked for entertainment clients.
I got a call from Bob Arum.
And he said, "Hey, I'm meeting with this fighter."
I said, "Oh, Oscar De La Hoya."
Everybody knew Oscar because he just won the gold.
He came back to Los Angeles. This is where he was from.
So I said, "Absolutely. I know sports PR."
Well, that was a lie. I didn't know any sports.
But he had a great look to him.
He had something golden.
- I always get nervous.
- My job was to create his public image.
Make sure you smile. Make sure you sit upright.
Because you want to embrace the public.
He was a natural, though.
I said, well, Oscar, we need to get a biography for you.
So we're gonna go do a photo shoot.
A week later, we did a spread in "Harper's Bazaar."
When I told Bob Arum, "You are not gonna believe this.
Oscar's going to be in 'Harper's Bazaar,'"
Bob looked at me, and he was like, "Are you kidding?
I don't want 'Harper's Bazaar.' I want 'Sports Illustrated.'"
I was like, seriously? This is "Harper's Bazaar."
Women saw Oscar in a fashion magazine.
That moment is when I realized
that Oscar was not just a sports figure,
but he was going to be more than that.
- In the beginning of my career,
my team was my brother and my father.
- I started working with him
as a camp manager, assistant coach.
- My trainer was Robert Alcazar,
who was my dad's friend from work.
Nelson and Mittleman were my managers,
and Bob Arum was my promoter.
And that was Team De La Hoya.
They laid out a plan for me.
We had press conferences in several cities.
I'm gonna train in Big Bear, fight every month.
We had one missing piece, and that was my nickname.
- Fighting out of the red corner,
he is making his professional debut--
- I had the golden looks...
- Really needing no introduction to you--
- The golden left hook...
- The pride of East LA...
- The golden story,
and the gold medal around my neck.
We all thought, wow, that's it.
- Welcome to the ring, the Golden Boy!
- You want me as a golden boy? All right, here you go.
Let's go.
- The Golden Boy opens up
in dramatic fashion!
- It was really loud,
but the screaming was a higher pitch.
It was tons, and tons, and tons of women.
♪ ♪
And people had signs, "I love you, Oscar," with big hearts.
That's not a boxing match. That's like a concert.
- He knocked out-- - Oh!
- Right there is a left hand right on the buzzer.
It's all over!
They stop the fight in the first round.
- He attracted people who were not into sports.
- Oscar De La Hoya has the potential
of being the most popular fighter since Muhammad Ali.
When I saw the reaction of women,
it then rang a bell what a tremendous fan base there was.
So we arranged thousands of women going crazy,
holding up signs, "Marry me, Oscar."
Once you're able to start that little fire,
and it catches on, it's like, boom, and it goes by itself.
It was great for business.
- Hicks is wobbly. Down from a right hand.
- They're gonna be short for a while
because Oscar De La Hoya is gonna whack out
these guys in the beginning.
- If De La Hoya is as good as he thinks he is,
show us, and show us against good fighters,
not just tomato cans and old men.
- After ten fights, my team thought
I was ready for a world title.
So I fought for my first world title
at the Olympic Auditorium.
My father fought there,
and my grandfather fought there.
- The Golden Boy is on the verge
of becoming a household name.
Oscar De La Hoya has a chance
to win his first world championship.
- People expect a lot from me.
The pressure is on from my family and everybody else.
- And the doctor here says, enough.
[crowd roaring]
- So Oscar gets his TKO.
- De La Hoya is a young man with tremendous ambition.
- Of course, my father was always pushing me,
but the person who's really pushing me hard
inside of me is my mom.
When I step inside the ring and the referee calls us,
I try not to look at my opponent's eyes.
What I do is look up in the sky
because it's as if I can feel her,
and she's looking at me, and my mother's
taking care of me.
[soft music]
My mom, she lived a tough life.
She had to cross the border at 14 years old
by herself because she wants to sing.
And then she ends up working at a zipper factory.
Talk about the American dream, huh?
- In Mexican society, because being Mexican
is so intertwined with Catholicism,
women are not allowed to be full
and real human beings or real women.
There were only three types of women.
You were either the virgencita, the virgin,
and then you got married, and then you became a mother.
And if you weren't a virgin and a mother,
then you were a whore.
You don't want to be known as a whore
because if you're a whore, then no man's gonna marry you
because men need to marry virgins
because if you're not a virgin, then you can't get married
and become a mother, which is your ultimate goal.
And it's a very rigid way that women are controlled
by Catholicism, by society, by the patriarchy.
So when you tell your parents, no, I'm a writer,
or I'm a singer, I'm a dancer, they're like,
what's the value in that?
- When immigrant parents abandon their dreams,
the expectation is, you're going to do better than us,
and you have to do better than us
because otherwise, why all the sacrifice?
- Since I was a kid, I never felt like
people loved me for who I really am inside.
I was Oscar the commodity.
♪ ♪
- Family members would buy me boxing equipment.
"Hey, do you need gloves? I'll buy them for you.
"You're gonna be the one, dude.
"You're gonna take us out of this lifestyle.
You're the one."
It's a lot of pressure.
♪ ♪
There came a point where I was missing a lot of school
because I was training for the Olympics.
But there was this one class.
I just loved painting and art.
Plus, the teacher was like my best friend.
He would take the time to just talk to me,
and encourage me, and bring out whatever passion I had.
♪ ♪
Anybody who tried to encourage me
or just put a little effort, I would like cling onto.
Turn around like that.
A little bit more.
It relaxes me. It relaxes the mind.
It takes me away from all the pressure from boxing
and from everybody around me.
- Oscar, I think you should stick to boxing.
- [laughs]
[cheers and applause]
- The beginning of my career, I was selling out arenas.
- And De La Hoya comes out with a strong right
to start things off.
De La Hoya really getting that jab.
- Another left hook knockdown for De La Hoya.
- I was winning these major fights.
- Five, six, seven!
- I would make him a favorite right now
against just about any other lightweight in the world.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- So I'm in Vegas after a fight,
and I'm looking for a motel that my managers had arranged.
And it's like two miles away from the strip.
It was not a good site, that's for sure.
The manager of the motel recognizes me and tells me,
"What are you doing here? This is like a shithole."
Wow.
Hmm.
Very first contract I signed,
I didn't receive the million dollars.
I was supposed to receive a brand-new car.
I got like a--I don't know, beat up something.
I don't know what the hell it was.
The home that they promised me on contract was leased.
I went to the bank, and I asked, like,
"How much do I have in the bank?"
"Oh, Mr De La Hoya, you have roughly $12,000 to your name."
$12,000? Ooh, shit, OK.
Let's fucking--let's take the bull by the horns now,
and let's make some changes.
- Oscar's father, Joel, arranged to fire the managers.
And as Oscar's promoter,
I thought that was a great decision.
- You know, once we got rid of the managers,
my father told me, like, yeah, go to this local Chevrolet
in Montebello called Camino Real
and meet this man who was an owner of a car dealership.
He was like a friend of the family.
My father knew him. He was very business savvy.
And he started asking questions like,
"Hey, do you have representation?
"Do you have somebody looking out for you?
And, oh, by the way, I just got rid of some people."
That were trying to fuck me over.
And typical car salesman,
he convinced me to be my manager,
telling me, "I don't believe in contracts
because my word is everything, you know?"
I'm like, oh, shit, this guy seems kind of cool.
And all of a sudden, money was just coming in.
I would go straight to the bank, get it on cash.
And they would try to convince me,
"No, don't have it in cash. Keep it in here."
You know, the money will grow, and the rates are, like,
super high right now, and this and that.
I didn't care.
I'm like, what the fuck is that, you know?
Just give me my cash.
- Once Hernandez came in, he turned everything around
as far as Oscar's personal finances
and put him on the right track.
- Money changes everything. Money changes everybody.
I thought that, as long as I keep winning,
you can't tell me no.
♪ ♪
You can't deny me.
If I want to get inside a club or restaurant,
whatever, it's like, I'm Oscar De La Hoya, the Golden Boy,
and I have money.
- Another left hook.
- For the first time, everybody around me
had no choice but to say yes.
I'm not gonna lie to you. Oh, yeah, the money's nice.
No, it was fricking great.
As a kid, like, I want more.
I'm feeling like I deserve more.
I'm freaking greedy now.
And I go back to Vegas.
Now we're staying in a major hotel,
double glass windows, and looking out the Strip.
I'm thinking, this is where I belong.
♪ ♪
- Why would he take a fight against a tough champion
like John John Molina at this stage?
- For the million bucks or more he's getting tonight,
he had to finally fight a big-time opponent.
[bell rings]
- Molina has succeeded in changing the style
of the fight to a brawl
and has given De La Hoya everything
he can handle for the past five or six rounds.
- The John John Molina fight was probably the first fight
where my trainer was over his head.
- [speaking Spanish]
- The instructions he would give me were just--
I couldn't understand.
- What do you think, George?
Is Oscar gonna listen to those instructions
from Robert Alcazar?
- Every time you cross tie the motherfucker,
you win the fight already, OK?
- He's babbling, and I'm waiting for instructions.
- Well, use the experience. Use the experience.
- I realize, everybody has their limits
of how much you can teach me.
- Oscar De La Hoya's first
12-round route-going performance.
[bell rings]
[crowd roaring]
- Alcazar was a good amateur trainer,
but he didn't have the gravitas that certain trainers had.
- I know what I can do. I know what I can accomplish.
But I fought a very unintelligent fight.
I needed somebody else to take me to another level.
- Chávez was a Mexican icon.
He had a great personality.
And in boxing, a guy has to have a personality
as well as ability.
- Presenting the three-time World Champion,
Julio César Chávez!
- I am the official trainer.
Mr. Roberto, he's my assistant.
- Roberto just detested him.
He just didn't want anything to do with Jesus.
As a matter of fact, they were asking Roberto,
"No, who's--what's he doing here?"
"Oh, he's just sweeping the gym."
- Then it could be an interesting fight.
But I don't think he will. I hope--oh, there he is.
- There he goes. A great left hook.
- You're looking at a world of talent
for a world champion right there.
It all happened fast.
- And we just connected instantly.
He would teach me about life,
and philosophy, and classical music.
He would teach me about wines, Shakespeare, and passion.
- We got along great. We would talk.
We'd have these great conversations
about religion or lack thereof.
He was an atheist.
My dad's very religious. .
My dad was thinking that, you know,
he was putting stuff into Oscar's head.
- The problem with Rivera,
he was just a dyed-in-the-wool communist.
He was like you had Karl Marx in the training camp.
♪ ♪
The camps went on for like two months before a fight,
and they were all living in the same place.
The father couldn't tolerate somebody constantly talking
against religion, against God.
For me, it was hilarious.
- I felt I became a different person.
I felt I grew. I felt I was becoming better.
I felt I was becoming bigger, like up here.
- There's De La Hoya.
You see him up on his toes more than we've
seen him before, with a little bit more movement.
- Something just clicked.
He made me think more.
- De La Hoya making himself an elusive target.
- He changed me to be a beautiful fighter.
- Right hand uppercut.
Hernandez is wobbled.
- Somebody just has to give me some attention,
give me some confidence, give me that encouragement,
and I will do whatever it takes.
- Right hand to the body, sets up the flurry.
De La Hoya landing on the ropes.
- The best thing that can ever happen to my career
was hiring the Professor.
And then we'd announce that I was gonna fight Chávez.
- You list him as one of your idols.
Has it hit you yet that you're really close to fighting him?
And what does it mean to you?
- Well, I knew it all along that maybe one day,
we can go at it, Julio César Chávez and myself.
I've always dreamed about that fight,
and now my dream is gonna become true,
fighting the legend, fighting the great champion,
fighting the people's idol, and I can't wait.
I'm looking forward to it.
Chávez, he's just like a badass son of a bitch.
[dramatic music]
But I mean, shit, he was so brutal.
♪ ♪
The guy can take a punch.
♪ ♪
When he fought Meldrick Taylor,
he was getting pummeled on.
He was getting beat up the whole fight.
♪ ♪
But there's no quit in Chávez.
And he knocks him out in the last ten seconds
of the last round to win the fight.
That's who Chávez was. Like, he never gave up.
- One can say that Chávez was more authentic than Oscar.
But Chávez had a crude side to him.
We cautioned Oscar against the crudeness
because we wanted Oscar to appeal
to the greater American Anglo audience.
- I respect the Mexican culture.
My parents are Mexican. All my family is Mexican.
And I'm proud of having Mexican blood.
But I'm proud that I was born here in the U.S. of A,
you know, the land of opportunities.
[dramatic music]
So I take up golf, and now Mexican Americans
are talking about, well, you're not one of us
because you were born here in the U.S.,
and you're playing golf, and you're hanging out
with the white folks.
Your skin's lighter.
You're pretty.
Look at the way you're trying to talk.
I'm just here, taking it easy, having a good time.
You're not Mexican enough.
♪ ♪
- He's very palatable and accessible to white people.
He's a nonthreatening Mexican, right?
Right, so Oscar De La Hoya fits this role of like,
oh, you're not a scary Mexican.
You're not like an Indigenous-looking Mexican
that I see at Home Depot.
- Latino men have to be tough.
They have to have a certain demeanor,
that macho type of guy.
You wear your sombrero, and you have
to act as tough as you can.
You have to have that image of macho.
You know, most of the fans felt
that I didn't have that machismo.
♪ ♪
- As we're starting to really promote that Chávez fight,
we started a press tour.
We had two planes.
Oscar was on one, and Chávez was on the other.
26 cities in about 15 days, we had one day off.
♪ ♪
We'd do a press conference in the morning.
We'd fly to another city.
We'd do a press conference there.
Sometimes it was on the tarmac.
We'd fly to another city, sleep over,
get up the next morning, and do the press conference.
And it was like that the entire time.
So sometimes, we'd do three in a day.
- Wherever I would go, people are telling me,
oh, he's gonna kick your ass, and you're not ready for him.
- I had to prove something to a whole culture,
to our people.
I mean, I've never been so focused in my life.
Everything was calculated, my food intake, the calories,
lights out at 8:00 p.m., no matter what,
lights back on at 4:00 a.m. to go run.
And Chávez, he would just be stumbling in
from partying or something.
And I was like, wow, I might have an advantage here.
[indistinct chatter]
Once we get to Vegas, we see Chávez
brought out the horde of fans.
I mean, it was crazy.
- Chávez number one. - Chávez.
- Chávez! - Chávez.
- Numero uno.
[soft music]
♪ ♪
- Being booed makes you want to just prove
that you can rise to the occasion.
♪ ♪
- What about looking out
through this enormously cruel Chávez crowd?
Could that have an effect on young De La Hoya?
- I get up on the ring, and I see him.
And I said, holy shit.
I'm really fighting Chávez.
[crowd chanting]
- Chávez's fans trying to rally him,
chanting México, México, México.
- I kind of like shook it off, like, you have to do your job.
I felt something happen in me that was like tunnel vision.
- De La Hoya says he's in the best shape of his life.
Chávez says he's in the best shape
since his dramatic comeback win over Meldrick Taylor.
- I thought, this is my moment to make sure
that people know who I really am.
My jab was lethal.
And I remember hitting him.
And I cut him open.
There was so much blood.
♪ ♪
After that, my confidence grew.
I was pushing him back.
♪ ♪
I felt I was getting into the rhythm.
♪ ♪
And just gliding and moving,
I felt I was floating in the ring.
♪ ♪
You can hit me with a sledgehammer,
and you cannot take me down.
[crowd roaring]
- Chávez getting in a left hook in close.
And he brings the crowd out of their seats
as he tries to mount the attack.
- I was showing you that I can take it.
I was showing you that I'm macho.
I was showing you that I can be a man up there.
- Good short left hook by De La Hoya.
And he comes back with a right hand.
And the blood bothering Julio,
as De La Hoya lands a vicious left hook.
Now his nose is bleeding too.
It's been all Oscar De La Hoya.
- I'm starting to think, wow, this can be like
the changing of the guard.
♪ ♪
- Cortez takes Chávez to Flip Homansky.
- The fight-- - That's it.
- The fight is over.
- The winner, by technical knockout,
winning his fourth world title belt,
and new WBC Super Lightweight
Champion of the World, the Golden Boy,
Oscar De La Hoya!
[crowd roaring]
♪ ♪
- Nobody gave me the credit that I deserved,
the respect.
It haunted me.
♪ ♪
- Sponsorships, press conferences,
tours everywhere, interviews,
magazines, commercial shoots.
- Call Cablevision today.
- The fights were easy to promote.
- Save up your dollars and dimes, so you can
buy pay-per-view because it's gonna be a good one.
- He would be on a talk show and plug himself.
"You know what, you can watch me on pay-per-view."
- He spoke beautifully both in English and in Spanish.
- I'd like to introduce to you, the Golden Boy.
[cheers and applause]
- Women went crazy about him.
♪ ♪
- He took care of us.
He bought our first house in Montebello.
- Yay. - Shut up.
After our mom passing, we grew a lot closer.
I was like his wingman.
Like, I was always with him, like, when he goes on dates,
or he's just going out.
He'll take me shopping.
I felt so close to him.
I felt like, oh, my God, like, we're doing it.
Like, we're gonna build a relationship here.
Until he moved into Bel Air.
[soft music]
♪ ♪
- As an adult, I realize everything
that I did miss out on as a kid.
Like, there's no childhood whatsoever.
What childhood?
And now that I have time to realize it,
it's like, OK, let me act out on it right now.
That sense of power, it was such a rush.
Once you head down that road, it's really difficult
to make a U-turn because you're just
so immersed in that chaos.
- What everybody is seeing was still the Golden Boy image.
- Even though I have this money, and the fame,
and glory, you know, I'm always gonna be the same person.
- But that's not reality.
[cheering]
♪ ♪
- No, keep going. No, no.
- Whoo!
- No, no, no, no, no, go.
- You know, things that were happening were maybe not OK.
He would make me a nervous heart attack.
- No. - Let's invite a few in.
- No, no, no, no, no.
♪ ♪
- I was in high school,
and he asked me to stay with him.
He's like, oh, you know, come spend some time with me.
But I hardly saw Oscar.
He was just always out and about or partying.
He was this different person that I've never saw before.
The day I left, I don't even think he was there.
So I remember writing a letter to him.
I just spilled everything on that letter, you know,
how I was feeling,
the depression I was going through,
and how I wish we were closer.
And I remember handing off that letter to one of his friends.
I doubt he gave it to him.
And I was so crushed and so hurt.
I had so much love for him, but I felt like I lost him.
♪ ♪
- I said to myself, everything is gonna be OK
as long as I keep winning.
- Let's get it on!
- Pernell Whitaker was the best fighter pound for pound
in the world at the time.
♪ ♪
- That could have been scored a knockdown.
- That is a knockdown. That is a knockdown.
- It is a knockdown. - It's a knockdown.
- Sure enough, a left hook just clocked me.
[crowd roaring]
- Great flurry by De La Hoya to end the tenth.
- I barely won the fight.
♪ ♪
- You were unable to really do what you do best against him,
and really to impose your youth and strength on him.
You feel it wasn't an Oscar De La Hoya performance?
- Well, I'm frustrated because I know I can do much better.
- Within two weeks, the man whom Oscar called
the Professor was let go.
But is Oscar dodging the blame when he doesn't
have a golden performance?
- He was the best trainer that I've had,
but I always trusted everybody in my circle.
I should have been more involved in my business,
in my livelihood, in my life.
- De La Hoya trying to throw a left hook,
and missing with it.
But he lands a left hook and momentarily stuns Camacho.
De La Hoya sends...
- I didn't have the capability at the time to realize,
to recognize that family is important...
♪ ♪
That close friends are important,
that loved ones are important.
- Right hand lands for De La Hoya.
- I didn't want to see anything that was good for me.
- And that's thunder. That is big stuff.
- I distanced myself from the ones I most love.
- Left uppercut. - Great combination.
- I was in my own world, where, you know,
I'm gonna have a good time, I'm gonna win,
I'm gonna train hard, I'm gonna fight,
but this is my world.
- Time to get out of there.
- Yeah, that's what he's gonna do.
- Fighting, that was my escape
from the pain...
- Uppercut slams into Camacho.
- Ever since I was a kid.
♪ ♪
My first thoughts of my childhood
are just being afraid--
of being afraid and pain,
crying, anger.
I remember we were playing stickball,
and sometimes, the ball would go into the street.
So one time, I swung and missed,
and I just instinctively ran out,
not looking both ways, not thinking.
And a car is coming so fast.
It just screeches to a halt.
[tires screeching]
And I end up in the bottom of the fucking car.
And everybody is like, "Oh, my gosh, he's dead.
Oh, my, little Oscar."
For some miraculous reason, I was untouched.
I can see my mom running down the street.
I'm waiting for my mother to, like, give me a hug.
And I mean, first thing she does is just,
you know, hits me,
beats the crap out of me.
♪ ♪
I remember times when I would cry,
and then she would tell me, "Well, you really want to cry?"
Then, boom, here you go.
I'm gonna give you something to cry about.
I never saw my mother hit my brother or my sister.
It was me who would always get hit.
She was hitting me so much, she started crying.
And she was angry, and she started crying
because I wasn't reacting to it.
I was just numb at that point. Nothing hurt me anymore.
I was just like, OK, you're gonna hit me, go ahead.
It's not hurting me anymore.
My soul is out of my fucking body.
But I hated it when she hit me. I fucking hated it.
It was the worst. It was the worst.
♪ ♪
But I had an outlet.
When I would step inside the ring,
I remember picturing my mom's face
on my opponent and just unleashing.
♪ ♪
- When you were a child, if you had an abusive mother,
you have to play this game in order to survive.
And then as an adult, you think, oh, it's over.
But if you've had to survive that way,
it's very hard to give up your survival strategies.
And there's outlets that people use to deal
with their pain and suffering.
Nobody wants to get punched in the face.
Like, nobody wants to have their nose broken three times.
Like, nobody wants that unless you're
fighting something spiritually or emotionally,
a ghost inside your mind.
- I started to enjoy it.
That's the scary part.
I loved getting hit in the face now
because I loved the buildup of the retaliation.
I loved the buildup of the anger.
♪ ♪
It's pain that I want to give back.
♪ ♪
So once that first bell rings...
[bell rings]
It's game on.
♪ ♪
And when I get hit, it doesn't hurt.
But now I have an excuse to get angry.
♪ ♪
And guess what, I'm gonna beat the living shit out of you.
♪ ♪
I don't care what happens to me.
I'm gonna go out there and just let it all out.
And then you get into a trance.
Your soul comes out of your body.
- And Oscar wants this so badly, he can taste it.
[crowd roaring]
- You're in your own world.
Nothing else matters.
Everything is just landing that perfect punch.
♪ ♪
It's distorted my lifestyle.
It's distorted my thinking.
It's kind of fucked with my psyche.
♪ ♪
- There's a lot more intimacy that men crave
that they're only allowed to get through sex and sports.
Men need to be able to cry, and to be embraced,
and to be hugged.
And it's sad that the little boys,
especially Mexican boys, are told,
as soon as they start crying,
that they're not allowed to cry.
♪ ♪
- You see my eyes. You see my face.
I'm numb.
I'm just-- I'm not even focused at my--
I'm focused at something else.
Like, my eyes are--
my eyes are not even there.
I'm focused at...
Yeah, I can see myself fighting.
And I don't even know why I'm fighting.
I just wanted to win, wanted to be loved.
That's it.
♪ ♪
- Finally, we have arrived, as we get set for the main event.
Oscar De La Hoya takes on Julio César Chávez.
It's an ultimate revenge in the rematch.
- Oscar, you say this is a personal fight for you.
It's about respect, isn't it, and the lack of respect
that he showed you after the first fight?
- Well, I'm not crying about it or nothing like that
because I don't cry about things.
I'm a real man.
I just want respect that fighters deserve.
♪ ♪
- I used to bully Oscar as a kid.
I remember a specific moment in time.
♪ ♪
He was about 11 years old.
I used to mess with him, and he got fed up one day.
♪ ♪
So I go into the kitchen, and he kind of pushes me.
I'm all--I'm not gonna let that happen.
I turn around to kind of just know scare him off a bit.
But he stood his ground.
♪ ♪
And I saw that look.
- And De La Hoya staring daggers at Chávez.
- There was this raging animal inside of him.
♪ ♪
And he socks me in the stomach.
I go down to my knees, and I can't breathe.
And I finally get up, and I see him,
and he's, like, looking at me like...
- Chávez won't come out.
He has refused to come out.
And I am shocked!
- Kid finally did it.
And that was the last time I messed with him.
OK, that's it. I'm done.
♪ ♪
It was out of respect.
- What did he say to you? - He told me, you know what?
You beat me.
♪ ♪
You made the great warrior quit on his stool.
- Thank you. Thank you very much.
And this fight here meant a lot to me.
There was just one focus on my mind today,
of course, to get a victory,
but this fight here is dedicated to my mother.
This is for you.
♪ ♪
When I was 16 years old, I walk into the house.
My mom tells me, crying, like,
"Son, can you put this cream on my back?"
We've never had that type of contact.
And she lifted up her shirt, and I saw the burns.
I was in shock.
And then she's just crying.
"I have cancer."
♪ ♪
What is cancer? What's going on?
"I have stage four cancer. I'm gonna die."
I just couldn't believe it. I had no words.
I couldn't cry. I couldn't hug her.
I couldn't comfort her. I couldn't do anything.
You know? I was just in shock.
The last fight she went to, it was the Goodwill Games.
I see this lady waving the American and Mexican flag.
Oh, my God, that's my mom.
♪ ♪
She missed her chemotherapy to attend that last fight.
- We'd be in the waiting room, and she'd be in such pain
that you could just hear her moaning.
I'd hold her hand and talk to her.
- I went up to her. "Mom, you know, how are you?
Are you OK today?"
And she looked at me like, who are you?
That one hit me good.
I remember going home and just crying, just crying.
- She held my hand, and, you know, she told me,
"Te quiero. I love you, te amo."
And I made a promise to her that I would
be the best brother I could be, the best son to my dad.
And I told her how much I loved her.
And I think first time I ever told her that,
I heard her breathe her last breath.
♪ ♪
- Coming back to the hospital,
I wanted to like rip the elevator open
and just run straight to her,
and maybe there's a chance that she can see me.
But she was gone.
♪ ♪
Never had the courage to tell her I love her.
I wish I did, you know? I wish I did.
♪ ♪
- There was never a singular moment
where we kind of, as a family,
with our father, and, you know, Oscar,
my sister, and myself, where we sat down,
we reminisced, we talked.
It was like, well, she passed.
OK, let's kind of like move on. You know?
Which just sounds pretty shitty when you look at it that way.
But I mean, it's just something that we weren't accustomed to,
I guess, sitting down and having
those hard conversations.
- Dad, him being, of course, being the tough dad,
being the tough love kind of dad, like,
I think he really wanted us to, like, just deal with it
and toughen up, you know?
But it was really difficult.
It was always just like, OK,
let's just all deal with it on our own.
- It was just a strange relationship that we had.
We love each other, but we can't express ourselves.
We can't show any compassion.
We can't really say anything to each other,
express our feelings.
But I can do it in the media.
I can do it with a stranger.
That was--to me, that was my therapy.
That was the way I can cope.
That was the way I can go on with my life,
and stay focused, and stay focused on the prize at hand,
and that was the gold medal.
Everything was about the gold medal because it was for her.
She wanted to wear that gold medal around her neck in '92,
and she told me to just get it for her.
And that's what I'm gonna do.
I was gonna win that gold medal no matter what,
but I was driven by a lie.
In one interview, I had said, my mother did tell me,
while she's dying, "Win the gold medal for me."
Before my mother passed away,
she told me she wanted the gold medal.
But it was a lie.
It just happened.
Emotion took over me, and it just caught fire.
- He brought honor to his mom's memory.
- Won our hearts recently when he fulfilled a promise
to his mom to win the Olympic gold medal.
- I embraced it. I held onto it.
And in a way, it was like-- it was like me finally,
for the first time, feeling like we're connected,
like we have a relationship after she passed away.
Being driven by that lie didn't seem wrong for me.
It didn't seem like I was doing anything wrong.
I was just happy that the story was about my mom,
and that she asked me, she told me to win
that gold medal for her.
That was my drive,
my green light to go and do it,
my motivation.
But yeah, it was a lie.
But when you're lying, you're caught up in this web,
and you have to lie more because I'm the Golden Boy.
They put me on the pedestal, and it's like,
"Oh, you can't do anything wrong.
He's the Golden Boy. You know, he's an angel."
Well, guess what, I'm not a fucking angel.
[dramatic music]
- Regarding the allegations, all we want is the truth.
- I was told by De La Hoya's attorney
that he didn't remember the event,
and he had actually slept with about 500 women since then.
♪ ♪
- Oscar De La Hoya being an alcoholic, a dope fiend--
- We want to see a fight, right?
- No, no, no. They're not--no.
[dramatic music]
[dramatic orchestral music]
♪ ♪
[bright tone]