Boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya once admitted that he considered running to become the president of the USA.
De La Hoya is a boxing hall of famer after rising from Olympic gold medalist to a six-division world champion and nowadays can be found working as a promoter for Golden Boy Promotions.
The 51-year-old has also worked with the likes of Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and has even promoted MMA fights too.
In recent times, De La Hoya has been teasing the return of Ryan Garcia to the ring but back in 2018, he had different aspirations: to become leader of the free world.
Oscar De La Hoya nearly ran for president in 2020
It’s not uncommon for sporting stars to try their hand in politics. For example, Wladimir Klitschko is the mayor of Kyiv.
Speaking about his intentions to one day run for president, De La Hoya teased the idea to TMZ, saying: “I am actually very, very serious and I strongly feel that if a Kanye West can do it and announce and maybe tease the world that he would maybe one day wanna run for president, why not me.”
He revealed that he considered running for the top job in the US after being encouraged to try his hand at something outside of sport.
“I’ve had literally, over the years, ever since I became a professional in boxing, I’ve had millions of people tell me, ‘Look, why don’t you represent?'” he said. “‘Why don’t you stand up and have a bigger voice?’
“And obviously the biggest voice you can have is being president.”
Oscar De La Hoya also wanted to become mayor of Las Vegas
Unsurprisingly, De La Hoya’s ambitions of running for president never took off and Joe Biden was elected ahead of him in 2020 instead.
His desire to work in politics has never been questioned though and only four years after making his vow to run for president, he then expressed his intention to run for mayor of Las Vegas in 2022.
This was after he confirmed he had no plans to run for president in the recent 2024 elections but becoming mayor of the Sin City? That appealed to him.
He said: “There might be some opportunities in Vegas to run for mayor. Imagine that?
“It’ll be interesting to see if I can make a run for mayor in Las Vegas.”
Whether he does or not in future is another thing, but, one thing for certain is that it will only be a matter of time before De La Hoya has another interesting proposal.