There’s not a soul on earth who didnt think Oscar De La Hoya needed to retire after Manny Pacquiao Rodney King’d him in December. Oscar sat down with Ring Magazine (which he now owns), to talk about that night and a possible return to the ring. Here are a few interesting tidbits:

THE RING: When did it become clear to you that you were in trouble during the fight?

DLH: Right from the start. Once the bell rang, I believe I threw a left hook to his body. He made a noise like it really hurt. After that, he was wide open, he was there for me and I didn’t do anything. Right there it started feeling like, “Wow, this doesn’t feel the same. I don’t feel like myself.” And obviously when he started landing punches at will, something in my mind happened like as if I said to myself, “You know what? It’s just not going to happen.” I felt as if he could just land anything and I couldn’t do anything about it. I just didn’t care. I didn’t care if he was hitting me because I couldn’t do anything about it. Luckily he doesn’t hit hard. Obviously, if he would’ve hit hard, he would have knocked me out with no problem.

THE RING: For someone who has dominated the majority of his opponents, that must’ve been a very strange experience.

DLH: It was. I was hoping he would knock me out. There was a point where I was hoping he would knock me out and end it. I felt like my hands were tied behind my back. And I was hoping he would knock me out. I still felt as if I could do something but I really felt like my hands were tied behind my back. Who wants to take punishment up in that ring. Like I said, I’m lucky he can’t punch hard.

De La Hoya: Yeah, obviously, I’m leaning toward retirement because those closest to me are urging me and telling me to. But then you have all the other questions you have to answer. I mean you get all these other responses from other people and you look at what Mosley did. And you look at what (Bernard) Hopkins has done. And you look at Pacquiao’s style. And you think about, “What if you fight a guy like Margarito, who’s going to be right in front of me and easy to hit.” It’s a lot to think about. And it’s funny because once I think I have that final decision something else comes up. “Well, what if this, what if that?”

For the record… Margarito aka Plaster Blaster would put Oscar in a coma.

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