Sub-par sparring culprit in Oscar loss vs Pacquiao

MANILA, Philippines – Somebody stepped forward and finally said it. Oscar dela Hoya lost as badly as he did to Manny Pacquiao because he didn't have quality sparring. According to Dela Hoya's conditioning coach Robert Garcia, he didn't understand why Edwin Valero and Victor Ortiz, who are a combined 48-1 and were initially picked to spar with Dela Hoya, were replaced by untested fighters. "If someone is looking for answers to why Oscar [lost], it comes down to sparring," Garcia told Brent Matteo Alderson in an article that appeared on Boxingscene.com on Saturday. "We started camp with Victor Ortiz and he only stayed up there for 10 days and for whatever reason, he left. ... Edwin Valero was also sent home and he's the closest thing you are going to see to [Pacquiao] ... What they ended up doing for reasons out of my control, they sent him home [too]." Ortiz and Valero are both southpaws and shorter than Dela Hoya, much like Pacquiao. Ortiz is a 23-1-1 (win-loss-draw) career fighter with 18 knockouts to his credit. Valero, a fighter who was once aggressively groomed to take on Pacquiao, is a perfect 24-0 with all his wins coming by stoppage. Garcia said he thought Ignacio "Nacho" Beristain, the legendary trainer hired by Dela Hoya for the Pacquiao bout, made the wrong choices. "For some reason Nacho thought that Valero was too rough. My whole argument is when you solve Edwin Valero you solve Pacquiao," Garcia said. "My theory was, let [Oscar] figure [Valero] out and work with Valero until the end of camp because the closer he gets to feeling comfortable with a young fast southpaw, the better chance he'll have when he gets in there with Pacquiao." "Now that decision [to release Valero] was made by a higher up than me." Blamed for the black eye On the eve of the Pacquiao-Dela Hoya match, Valero spoke to Filipino sportswriters in Las Vegas and told them he was kicked out of Dela Hoya's camp because he caused Dela Hoya too much trouble. "I hurt Oscar a lot," Valero said at the time. "I got kicked out after [I caused a black eye on Oscar]. Oscar doesn't want to spar with me anymore. They told me I couldn't be there." Valero even went on to say that Dela Hoya did "not like to work out". Valero, a southpaw like Pacquiao, sparred with Dela Hoya for only eight rounds before he was promptly replaced after battering Dela Hoya during their training. Beristain's lapses Garcia, who has worked with Dela Hoya since 2001 under Dela Hoya's long-time trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr., admitted that Beristain had instructional lapses during Dela Hoya's training. "Valero was there longer but when he was there, they weren't even using him," Garcia said. "... If you look at whatever footage we have, [Valero] was doing as well in sparring as Pacquiao did in the fight. Valero was getting in and out with his speed; he was confusing him with the left-handed style. ... [But] they sent him home... Nacho had other plans." Garcia didn't entirely blame Beristain for the botched-up training. He said somebody like Beristain, a revered trainer in Mexico, coming in at such a short time to train someone in a high-stakes bout wasn't exactly a formula for success. "Mayweather was very good at having that minute there to llok at what was going on and telling Oscar how to get the upper hand with a good set of instructions, but that's something that needs time to develop," Garcia said. "Nacho wasn't given the opportunity to develop that trust in order to know his fighter and know what kind of instructions to give." - GMANews.TV