When Oscar De La Hoya confirmed to ESPN last week that he planned to return to boxing, almost 12 years after his last fight, at the age of 47, the news reminded me of one relevant stretch in 2013. De La Hoya had transitioned from the end of his fighting career to running his own promotional company, and his prized signee, Canelo Alvarez, was set to fight reigning pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas.
I was writing for the New York Times then, and I spent maybe eight days with De La Hoya in Los Angeles and Manhattan.