May 6.
That's the night Oscar De La Hoya returns to the boxing ring.
So, roughly two months away from that fight against Ricardo Mayorga, shouldn't we the readers be in line for some press conference hijinks?
The AP wire sent out this headline Tuesday night: "De La Hoya, Mayorga trade verbal shots."
The headline should have read: "Insert Name Here, Insert Other Name Here trade verbal shots months before fight as you might have already expected."
Whoa, nellie, let me tell you about predictability in the sport of boxing.
And so we have the circle of life in boxing.
"This clown sitting here to my right has disrespected me," Mayorga said. "He keeps saying that he's going to be fighting in September or October, like he’s fighting a nobody in May."
He didn't stop there. Oh no. Just that one line would only sell about 12 more pay-per-view homes.
"You remind me of an old lady that's past her prime that should be sitting home in a rocking chair doing nothing," Mayorga added.
OK, now that might just be enough to make a few of us find a bar that will show this fight.
De La Hoya understands the business of boxing, and the business of boxing says this: When fired upon, return the fire, or cash a smaller check after the fight.
"I’ve never had any anger toward anybody, or disrespect, except for one man out there who got knocked out," De La Hoya said. "This guy here, May 6, believe me, he will get knocked out."
Pretty weak comeback, Oscar. You'd have been better off with "I know you are but what am I?"
Let's review: We have a boxing match approaching and they want people to know that. We have cheap shots from the lesser of two known fighters. We have a calmer retort from the better known of the two fighters.
Yep, we can rubber-stamp this story. Please bookmark this link because when we're two months away from another big fight. We'll just switch the names. Everything else will be the exact same.