Sugar Ray: De La Hoya in Trouble

In 1987, Sugar Ray Leonard shocked the world when he came out of a three year retirement to defeat the undisputed and heavily favored middleweight champ, Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Now Oscar De La Hoya, like Leonard an Olympic gold medalist and a major box office draw, faces a similar challenge when he takes on Bernard Hopkins this Saturday night in Las Vegas. However, Leonard sees differences between his situation and that of this era's Golden Boy and predicts a long, painful night for De La Hoya. Leonard feels he "was stronger than Oscar" and therefore better able to deal with a dominant middleweight. It may just be Leonard's ego talking but there's no debating the fact that De La Hoya - a clear underdog for the first time in his career - will need the performance of his lifetime to defeat Hopkins.