De La Hoya Names Ike Quartey the Toughest Fight of His Career

Ask most fans for Oscar De La Hoya's toughest night and they'll point to Manny Pacquiao, who stopped him before matching his six-division feat in 2009. De La Hoya disagrees. The Golden Boy — the first man to win world titles in six weight classes, sealing that record with a 2004 decision over Felix Sturm for the WBO middleweight strap — reserves that honor for a fight nearly a decade earlier.

Speaking on Froch on Fighting, De La Hoya named his 1999 split-decision win over Ghana's Ike Quartey as the hardest of his career. Quartey walked in at 34-0-1, a former WBA welterweight champion nobody wanted to touch. De La Hoya said he took the fight without hesitation because he wanted the best available names, no exceptions.

A 36-Minute Firefight

The math tells the story. Quartey dropped De La Hoya in the first round. De La Hoya returned the favor in the third, got dropped again, then floored Quartey three times across the night. That's the kind of scorecard chaos that produces a split decision — and both men earned it.

De La Hoya's standout memory is the 12th. He described unloading around 40 unanswered shots with Quartey pinned on the ropes, glancing at the referee expecting a stoppage that never came. His point: today that fight gets waved off. Back then, officials let it run. Both men still had their hands raised when the final bell rang.

Where the Careers Went

Quartey moved up to super-welterweight after the loss but never won another world title, retiring in 2006 with a 37-4-1 ledger. De La Hoya kept building the résumé that made him one of the sport's defining pay-per-view draws before the Pacquiao chapter closed his in-ring story.

The timing of these reflections is neat, too. Pacquiao — the only other man in that six-division club — has been linked to a possible showdown with Shakur Stevenson, the unbeaten WBO super lightweight champion sitting at 25-0 (11 KO) off a unanimous-decision win over Teofimo Lopez. Different era, same appetite for the hardest fights available. De La Hoya would approve.