Heroes, hustlers and healers in combat sports

SACRAMENTO, California—Heroes vs Healers vs Hustlers.

Such a catchy slogan crafted for this season’s “Survivor” series on CBS Television fits its conniving contestants to a T.

But the tagline is also apropos for combat sports personalities bent on outlasting each other for the attention of the faithful and their entertainment bucks.

Although the colliding worlds of boxing and mixed martial arts lack healers, heroes thrive.

There’s Australian schoolteacher Jeff Horn.

The 2012 Olympian who upset eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao for the WBO welterweight title at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane last July is now heralded for his monumental feat.

And then there are hustlers like boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and UFC star Conor McGregor, whose fusion fight last August was more of a fraud and has been ridiculed as the biggest fleece of the century.

The larceny they pulled off to the tune of a minimum $100 million in purse money for Mayweather and $30 million for McGregor has been eating up the “Golden Boy,” Oscar De La Hoya.

So much so that the 1992 Olympic gold medalist and multititled world champion turned promoter said he would be ready to step back in the ring and face McGregor.

The 44-year-old De La Hoya said he would only consider fighting McGregor under boxing rules.
“Let’s get it straight. In the cage he (McGregor) would freaking destroy me.”

Although he has not fought since being clobbered to submission by Pacquiao in 2008, De La Hoya disclosed that he had been “secretly training for the last two months and working out for the last five…”

De La Hoya is confident he could beat the “Irish Gorilla” and take him out in two rounds.

“I still have it in me… I’m faster than ever and stronger than ever,” he told Boxing News.

De La Hoya, a boisterous critic of McGregor’s foray into boxing against the unbeaten Mayweather, is now “calling out” the MMA great: “Two rounds, that’s all I need. That’s all I’m going to say.”

De La Hoya had once derided the Mayweather-McGregor crossover bout easily won by Floyd as a “circus” and a “farce.”

While De La Hoya seeks to return to the ring pronto, Amir Khan seems to be thinking about leaving it altogether.

The British boxing hero has not fought since May 2016 when Canelo Alvarez knocked him out in Las Vegas.

The next time he appears on TV, it won’t be in a boxing match but on the British reality show “I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!”

The show features up to 12 celebrities together in a jungle who compete to be monarch of their primitive surroundings.

Khan was considered to face Pacquiao, his ex-sparring mate, but was dropped in favor of Horn, who went on to wrest the fighting Filipino senator’s WBO welterweight belt.

Of course Khan will be paid for his TV reality series debut, a puzzling development in terms of his boxing future.