Relax your jabs; a September rematch is coming either way

Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather will fight a rematch in September. Enough of the world awaited “The World Awaits” that one can assume a million or so of the world’s inhabitants will await some more. That is what Golden Boy Promotions, Mayweather and HBO all assume.

Pursuant to that rematch, last weekend brought good news and bad news for serious fans. The bad news was that the rematch was inevitable. The good news was that since we were in for “The World Awaits Some More,” either way, De la Hoya acquitted himself well enough to make the rematch’s marketing painless.

Well-enough came in the form of a lopsided decision over Steve Forbes. Saturday in Home Depot Center’s soccer stadium, De la Hoya won about 34 of his 36 minutes with Forbes. Ringside judges had the fight 119-109, 119-109 and 120-108 for the Golden Boy. If there was a point of controversy to the decision it was with the two judges who gave a stanza to Forbes. That’s just another way of writing there was no point of controversy.

Working off the script HBO helpfully provided in Countdown to De la Hoya-Forbes, De la Hoya beat Forbes by relaxing and using his jab. Aside from jabbing well — something De la Hoya did more of before he met his current trainer — De la Hoya didn’t do anything too impressively. But he did everything a bit better than last time. Mission accomplished.

As alluded to in HBO’s Countdown, De la Hoya would have beaten Mayweather a year ago if he’d jabbed more. Because Mayweather finished the fight so emphatically better than De la Hoya, sweeping its last third, many boxing aficionados forgot that De la Hoya led after eight rounds. It was De la Hoya and HBO’s job to remind us.

So De la Hoya reminded us. He continued to pump his left hand — the genuinely gilded part of the Golden Boy — controlling time, space and everything else with his jab. How was De la Hoya able to do this to Forbes when he was utterly unable to do it against Mayweather? Because De la Hoya wasn’t fatigued. Why wasn’t he fatigued? That’s the interesting part.

At a young age, De la Hoya developed a bad habit. So anxious to strike his opponents, De la Hoya kept every muscle in his body flexed whenever he was in a boxing ring. Because Olympic matches are a quarter the length of championship prizefights, De la Hoya’s fatigue-inducing tension never came to the fore. Not until he faced men of his equivalent talent for 12 rounds, in other words, did De la Hoya’s muscle rigidity show itself as a problem.

Saturday it wasn’t a problem. One didn’t need to wait until the championship rounds to see that. So far as tension goes, De la Hoya’s jaw is always his tell. Because his face is mostly devoid of softening fat, De la Hoya’s jaw usually bulges like a gumball in his cheek. His is rarely the relaxed countenance of a comfortable craftsman in the ring.

Against Forbes, De la Hoya kept his mouth partially open and his jaw looser. An open mouth can precede a broken jaw, and it’s hardly the sort of thing to teach a youngster. But with De la Hoya’s reflexes and Forbes’ want of punching power, a loose jaw was a good way for De la Hoya to remind himself to relax.

Also, because Forbes is a thoroughly likable guy, De la Hoya felt none of the animus toward him that he’d felt toward the thoroughly unlikable Mayweather.

Since De la Hoya-Forbes was all about De la Hoya-Mayweather II, it’s fair to imagine how well Saturday’s Golden Boy might have fared against “Money May.”

Not as well. Whereas Forbes lacked De la Hoya’s quickness, accuracy and power, Mayweather has De la Hoya bested in at least two of those categories, quickness and accuracy, right from the opening bell. How loose De la Hoya could remain after eating right crosses from Mayweather is debatable. And with his looseness lost to hostility and Mayweather’s punches, De la Hoya’s troublesome fatigue would probably crop up in the ninth round — taking away his power advantage.

De la Hoya’s body punching also remains unconvincing. Boring in with hands low and head down, De la Hoya slaps with his right hook. Though the right hook’s only true purpose is to cock the left, De la Hoya is ill-advised to throw wide slaps with his chin hovering just above Mayweather’s right uppercut.

Finally, Forbes was good at defense and decent at offense. He was no good, however, at making the transition from defense to offense. Mayweather makes this transition better than any fighter in the world. Mayweather won’t go in a shell and absorb De la Hoya’s combinations on his gloves without countering De la Hoya first.

But enough tarnishing the Golden Boy. Saturday’s “Homecoming” was about De la Hoya saying thank you and farewell to Southern California, where he began. It was a success. Though boxing insiders mostly roll their eyes at De la Hoya’s recycled and cliché-riddled pronouncements, casual fans eat them up. Another 24/7 — this one filled with Mayweather family strife and De la Hoya gritting his teeth and saying he’s never wanted anything so badly as to beat Mayweather — should sell a million pay-per-view purchases. An adequate reason to carry on.

Serious fans, meanwhile, can do some teeth-gritting of our own. We know the mindless cacophony of the Family Mayweather is ultimately unhelpful and unhealthy to our sport. But we also know that if De la Hoya relaxes and jabs, and finds two sympathetic judges, we could be rid of Money May by Mexican Independence Day.

If De la Hoya then finishes his career by fighting the winner of Cotto-Margarito, in December, we can all say, “I guess it was worth it.”