Oscar De La Hoya vs. Félix Trinidad
| The Fight of the Millennium | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | September 18, 1999 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Las Vegas, Nevada | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title(s) on the line | WBC & IBF World Welterweight Unification | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tale of the tape | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Result | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Trinidad won via majority decision. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Oscar De La Hoya vs. Félix Trinidad, billed as The Fight of the Millennium, was a boxing match held in Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 18, 1999, to unify the WBC and IBF's world Welterweight championships.
Planned by promoters Bob Arum and Don King, it pitted WBC world champion Oscar de la Hoya, a Mexican-American, versus Puerto Rican IBF world champion Félix Trinidad. It was the last of the so-called superfights of the 20th century.
The opening 4 rounds were competitive as Trinidad seemed to have ring generalship and De Ha Hoya's scored with some quick flurries. The first 4 rounds are hotly debated among media and fan scores. De La Hoya let his hands go in the middle rounds and seemed to have a lead on the scorecards after 8 rounds.
However, De La Hoya tired noticeably by the ninth round and on the advice of his corner, thought he had an insurmountable lead on the scorecards. De La Hoya practically gave away the final three rounds by not engaging as Trinidad gave chase.
Although a majority of observers felt De La Hoya had won the match despite his late-round tactics, Trinidad was declared the winner by a somewhat controversial majority decision.
While the action did not live up to the pre-fight hype, the controversial finish fueled calls for a rematch, which never materialized.
The bout set the pay-per-view record for a non-heavyweight fight with 1.4 million buys on HBO, until it was broken by De La Hoya-Mayweather on May 5, 2007. It set the record 2.4 million buys, the most in boxing history until that was surpassed by Mayweather-Pacquiao in 2015 with the record of 4.4 million buys.