Patrick Reusse: De La Hoya's proud legacy evident at Target Center

There were three houses crowded together in a quiet East Los Angeles neighborhood. Brothers Raul and Vicente De La Hoya had family homes side-by-side. And Joel De La Hoya's family lived in a house directly behind Vicente's on a shared lot.

Oscar De La Hoya, 19, was sitting on a couch in the house of his father, Joel. He was asked about the obvious bond among his father's family.

"One of my strengths is family power," Oscar said. "There are many fighters who have no family help. When I fight, there are uncles, aunts, cousins cheering for me."

A day later, a caravan of De La Hoya vehicles left the neighborhood and traveled a couple of miles to the Resurrection Gym, located in an old Catholic church.

When word spread Oscar's sparring partner would be Shane Mosley, neighborhood people started arriving and crowded from the ring apron to the back walls. De La Hoya and Mosley went five lively rounds.

This was May 1992 and the LA tandem was getting ready for the Olympic trials. De La Hoya was the national champion at 132 pounds and Mosley at 139.

Oscar made it through the trials and then the box-off against Patrice Brooks. Mosley was upset in the quarterfinals of the trials and wasn't chosen for the box-off.

"I'm still not over her death," Oscar said. "She wanted me to win the Olympic medal. Before she died, I told her I was going to do that, for her."

The gold medal promise was completed on Aug. 8 in Barcelona. De La Hoya defeated Germany's Marco Rudolph. It was the only '92 gold medal for the U.S. boxing team.

De La Hoya would make his professional debut 3 1/2 months later. He fought professionally for 16 years. He held titles at superfeatherweight, lightweight, light welterweight, welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight.

De La Hoya was 31-0 when he lost a huge money fight with Felix Trinidad on Sept. 18, 1999. Nine months later, De La Hoya fought his former sparring partner -- Shane Mosley -- for the WBC welterweight title.

Mosley won a split decision, then beat Oscar again in 2003 on a unanimous decision.

Oscar has been responsible for allowing boxing to retain its weak pulse. And on Saturday night, far from the spotlight of one of De La Hoya's dozen or more extra-large fights, the Twin Cities boxing crowd was summoned again.

A six-bout card was held at Target Center and drew an announced 3,594.

Matt Vanda, Wilton Hilario and Litzau brothers -- Jason and Allen -- were the prominent names on the card. The best entertainment came in the night's fourth fight between Cerresso Fort and Robert (Sweet Dreams) Kliewer, a pair of 160-pounders from St. Paul.

Fort gained a reputation as an amateur and is now 6-0 as a pro after a TKO at 2:03 of the fourth. This ended 11 minutes of zany activity from Kliewer, a 6-foot-1 stringbean.

Kliewer would take a punch to the stomach and go down to one knee. He would get up, start walking away from Fort, then turn and throw haymakers from over the top.

This was Kliewer's 19th pro fight (9-8-2) in two years. He is attending Minnesota State University Mankato in law enforcement and had not trained much for this fight.

"In shape or not, if a promoter wants me, I'm there," Kliewer said. "And they all want me, because they know I'm going to put on a show."

There was a large mouse around Kliewer's left eye. He was offered an ice pack.

"No way," he said. "I want a big, swollen eye if we go to a bar tonight. Someone sees that, she might want to comfort me."