Oscar De La Hoya is coping with his old and new fitness routine

Oscar De La Hoya is coping with his old and new fitness routine

As Oscar De La Hoya puts it: When you're prepared for greatness, there's a chance you're also destined for doom. Oscar De La Hoya has experienced both sides of success and now shares every detail of his storied life and career.

The boxing icon, now one of the sport's most prominent promoters, reveals every championship and every scandalous detail in the new two-part documentary.The golden boy, which premieres July 24 on HBO and HBO Max. For De La Hoya, freeing himself from his demons is something like a therapeutic cleansing of decades of hidden secrets — and he says it feels good to let them out. “It’s real and it’s raw,” De La Hoya tells M&F. “It’s not sugarcoated, I’m literally telling the truth.”

De La Hoya was quickly crowned a pugilistic prodigy, logging more time in the gym before starting kindergarten than most people would in a lifetime. At age 6, De La Hoya was already lacing up his gloves and going for morning jogs while other children his age were learning math.

He spent his days boxing - sparring, weightlifting and even following a prescribed diet before he was even 7 years old. The "military-style" program, as he called it, continued throughout his youth, with a daily regimen of sprints or six-mile runs, followed by 12 rounds of sparring and capped off with an evening strength training session. Everything for the goal of Olympic gold.

“It was literally a 24/7 job,” says De La Hoya. "Your mind had to be laser focused 24/7. So when it comes to boxing, it's about winning and becoming a world champion. And it was a [full-time] job."

He became a global phenomenon in 1992 when he won the gold medal at the 1992 Olympics, his greatest moment as an athlete, he says. According to him, the greatest moment of his career was dedicated to his mother Cecilia, who died of breast cancer in 1990. “I literally felt numb on the podium,” he said. "When I heard the US national anthem, I literally couldn't smile, couldn't laugh, couldn't cry. I was just numb because all the hard work since I was five years old literally paid off in that moment.

From then on, he won his first 31 fights and immediately became the face of boxing. He went on to win ten world titles in six different divisions, including victories over icons Julio Cesar Chavez and Pernell Whitaker. The final years of De La Hoya's 39-6 career were a little more humiliating - embarrassing knockout losses to Manny Pacquaio and Bernard Hopkins were some of the first signs that the golden era was coming to an end.

As part of his winning strategy, balance is now the key to De La Hoya's happiness. Despite training hard in the gym every day, the former champion is no longer prone to overdoing it. Although his routine still consists of jumping rope and shadow boxing, he has (mostly) traded in the gloves and is pulling out the golf clubs. “If I could do it every day, I would,” he says.

Success strategy: Oscar De La Hoya

1. Permission is better than oppression

I grew up with trauma since birth. When I was 6, my inner circle called me the next great champion. And everyone treated me differently, so something changes in you. You keep winning fights and championships and everyone praises you - and you start to believe it. Then you start living a life, a life that is not yours.

After all the years of winning gold medals, winning world titles, having the whole world believe in me, criticizing me, and scrutinizing me, I always ended up feeling like I wasn't myself.

So it's kind of liberating for me to be telling this story now on HBO Max. For me, it's somehow very therapeutic to just tell it like it was and tell the real story, the truth. So it's like I'm freeing myself from the world.

[Keeping it bottled] was both physically and mentally demanding. Luckily, boxing gave me the opportunity to vent my frustrations - if I was angry, I could go in there and hit someone without getting arrested. It was my sanctuary, my office, my safe haven. And so boxing was my escape from everything I was going through and enduring in my personal life.

2. Stay fit despite the madness

I was a robot, trained and conditioned from the start. I laced up the gloves at age five and everything I did - including dieting at age six and seven - was for boxing. My parents just conditioned me to be a fucking robot. And the military style was all I knew: you did that at that time, went to bed at 8 p.m., got up at 5 a.m. to go for an early run. It's part of my lifestyle.

I toned it down a bit. My life is more balanced at the moment. Before it was all about boxing, you only focused on the bigger picture - that was becoming a world champion and a gold medalist and making everyone happy. And now my life and lifestyle are balanced. There is nothing I have focused more on. There's nothing I'm less focused on. I just try to balance everything.

Today I love jumping rope. At 50, my knees and ankles are a little beat up from all the pounding on the pavement all those years when I was a kid, but skipping the rope in the soft asphalt feels great. I do a lot of strength training, small weights and a lot of shadow boxing. Basically, I try to shadow box and jump rope almost every day. I'll just limit myself to an hour. I have one of those thick, heavy ropes that weighs about five or six pounds. I can do this for maybe 12 three-minute rounds. It keeps you in top shape. Your arms are pumped up, the condition is great. And it's fun.

Back when I fought, at the peak of my career, I was in the gym all day. If I finished my sparring and strength training I would still want to do something because as an athlete you want to make sure you are physically and mentally ready. Now I'll just limit it to an hour. As I said, everything is balanced. And I know in my head that when I jump over the rope and do my weights, I'm doing a great job, but I'm not overdoing it.

3. Evolution instead of complacency

I see myself in these children that I support. I see her talent and potential. You know, there's no other promoter in the world that has laced up the gloves like I have, and so I give him all this information, this knowledge outside and inside the ring, so the transition was easy for me.

I enjoy it. I love it so much that sport has given me everything I have and everything I have I owe to boxing. So you know I'm still at it, promoting these young guys, you know, like the Ryan Garcias of the world promoting Canelo [Alvarez] and, you know, having to promote [Manny] Pacquiao and [Floyd] Mayweather and stuff. It just keeps me in the game. It holds me. It keeps me sane. And it keeps me at peace.

If I had ever been complacent, I would have easily fallen off because I have always fought at the highest level. So every opponent I had was very dangerous. So if I ever got complacent after winning my first world title, I would have lost. I would have been eaten up by the fighters who train harder and want more.

I think mental strength is just as important as physical work. It's easy not to exercise. It's easy to just say, you know what, I'm going to take a day off, but it's so hard to tell you every day. I have to do this, I want to do this. And I want to stay at the highest level. I want to compete with the best.

I surprised myself at times that I had that mentality for so many years after fighting so many world titles and fighting so many world champions, but that's exactly what it takes.

4. Bounce back better and stronger from adversity

My biggest regret was getting knocked out by Bernard Hopkins. I moved up to middleweight and he was the middleweight king. And I was going for my sixth league title, my tenth world title. He hits me with a body shot. And you know, the one thing I regret most is not standing up. Not because I couldn't do it mentally, but because I didn't have the strength to do it. But when he hit me physically too, you know, he hit me on the body to deliver. It's like I was okay in 11 seconds, but that's a second too late because now I'm saying it. This is the moment I regret the most.

I remember to always be mentally strong because the mind is very, very, very powerful. I mean, the mind can take you to places you never thought you could go physically and mentally. So that's the one thing I always remember: If it hurts, just push yourself. Challenge yourself because there is literally no tomorrow.

5. Mentor the next generation in mental toughness

We live in different times. You know, fighters like me, Floyd Mayweather. Because of the way we were raised, we have this toughness within us. It's a different era. The fact that I can talk to these kids [about mental health] helps. A lot of kids can give up so easily, and that's why I tell these kids that it's going to be okay, that they can train hard and balance their lives. You have to push them and that's why as a promoter I try to be sensitive. I try to be balanced with my messages to her. They appreciate it because I chose this path.

It's [also] about respecting what you do. If you really want it, go out and do it 1,000 percent. Don't do it half-heartedly. Don't blame yourself because you are no different than me and I am no different than you. The only thing that is different is the way you think, that is the bottom line. So I tell these kids: If you think you've pushed your limits, then guess what, you still have 10 or 15 percent more left in the tank. That's exactly what I tell them. And in most cases it worked.