by Robert Morales

Oscar De La Hoya on Wednesday told the Los Angeles Times a couple of interesting things regarding himself and his former promoter, Bob Arum. Although Richard Schaefer - CEO of De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions - was not mentioned by name, he was alluded to in one of the comments.

First, and we're paraphrasing, Lance Pugmire of the Times tweeted out that De La Hoya had reached out to Arum about making a Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez-Manny Pacquiao fight. Of course, since there has been so much hate between Golden Boy and Arum's Top Rank Inc., a fight like that has been highly unlikely before this apparent change of heart by De La Hoya.

A second tweet had De La Hoya saying that if anyone at Golden Boy has any differences with Arum, "It's on them."

We spoke to Schaefer by telephone Wednesday. He was asked to respond to both tweets regarding his boss. He said nothing about Pacquiao-Alvarez. As for the second item, Schaefer said flat-out, "Then I guess it's on me."

Arum and Schaefer have been at the heart of the so-called "cold war."

Why should anyone buy Mayweather-Maidana? Schaefer answers

A lot has been said about the upcoming May 3 Showtime pay-per-view card featuring Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a welterweight title-unification fight against Marcos Maidana of Argentina. Some of it has not been nice. All one has to do is go on Twitter and there is no shortage of people wondering if they should buy the event.

The hesitance comes from the notion that as a heavy underdog, Maidana has little or no chance to make a real fight of it. Schaefer scoffs at that notion.

"First of all it's boxing and you just never know," Schaefer said. "There have been a lot of one-sided fights going in which turned out to be not all that one-sided, or one-sided the other way around.

"Actually, some of them have involved exactly the guy who is going to challenge Floyd Mayweather. And that's Marcos Maidana."

Schaefer harkened back to June 2009 at Staples Center when an unknown Maidana stopped Victor Ortiz in the sixth round of an interim junior welterweight title fight.

"When he was fighting at Staples Center against America's new darling; he was being called the next Oscar De La Hoya - Victor Ortiz, I'm talking about - not too many people gave Marcos Maidana much of a chance," Schaefer said.

Then just this past December in San Antonio, Maidana stunned a lot of us by decking Adrien Broner in the second and eighth rounds on his way to taking Broner's welterweight title via wide unanimous decision.

"I actually checked the Ring Magazine when Maidana fought Adrien Broner and it was like 30 people picked Broner to win and four people picked Maidana," Schaefer said. "So you see these one-sided things, and then you see what happens."

Yeah, but Ortiz and Maidana are not Mayweather (45-0, 26 KOs). Even so, Schaefer believes that if the hard-hitting Maidana (35-3, 31 KOs) somehow can connect with one of his heavy punches, "It's going to be lights out."

As great as Mayweather is defensively, Maidana is dangerous offensively.

"Maidana is the kind of relentless guy who goes for the kill," Schaefer said, wearing his favorite promoter's hat. "When he smells blood, he goes for it. He's young, he's hungry, he's coming into the fight with the biggest confidence you could have, beating Broner.

"And when you are young and when you are confident, you know you have the power and you know that Mayweather is not a big puncher, Mayweather can't really hurt you. If you know all of these things ... do I smell upset in the air? It could definitely happen."

Mayweather is 37, Maidana 30.

And the undercard?

Broner will face light-hitting Carlos Molina (17-1-1, 7 KOs) of Norwalk in the junior welterweight class and Amir Khan will tangle with Luis Collazo at welterweight underneath Mayweather-Maidana. Schaefer likes both fights. He calls Khan-Collazo a "50-50" proposition. And he said Broner has some answers to give.

"Even though again, a lot of people feel it might be a mismatch against Carlos Molina, or that Carlos Molina might be in too tough, we don't know what that fight with Maidana took out of Adrien Broner," Schaefer said. "We won't know until that fisrt bell rings and these people who felt that the Broner puzzle couldn't be solved, well it sure got solved. What did Maidana take out of Broner physically and mentally? We don't know that. And Carlos Molina has been waiting for that kind of opportunity. Here it is, on the biggest stage."

Speaking of Carlos Molina, the one from Norwalk

If you saw HBO's "The Fight Game" with Jim Lampley this past Saturday, you know he confused the Carlos Molina of Norwalk with the junior middleweight Carlos Molina of Chicago, the one who remains in a Las Vegas jail.

Lampley was previewing the May 3 card when he came with this: "On his undercard Amir Khan is facing Luis Collazo and Adrien Broner fights Carlos Molina. Collazo is regarded as dangerous for Khan, but Molina has spent the bulk of the past few months in jail.”

Lampley this week offered an apology.

"Saturday night on the latest edition of 'The Fight Game' on HBO, I made an embarrassing mistake," Lampley said in a statement. "I confused light welterweight contender Carlos Molina of Norwalk, CA  with 154-pound fighter Carlos Molina of Chicago. Los Angeles native Carlos Molina has an important fight on May 3 versus Adrien Broner in Las Vegas.  None of the legal issues confronting Carlos Molina of Chicago have anything to do with the younger Molina. I apologize to Mr. Molina for confusing the matter as he prepares for his important prizefight next month."

How is Gennady Golovkin's psyche ahead of Chavez Jr.?

Although we are still awaiting word on the finalization of the proposed July 19 super middleweight fight between middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and former champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., we have to wonder about the mental health of Golovkin.

It's one thing for someone to lose his father when it's expected. When it's not, that's another thing entirely.

Gennady Ivanovich Golovkin died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 68 in February in the family's native Kazakhstan. The younger Golovkin was going to defend his title against Andy Lee on Saturday, but he pulled out in early March because he wanted to observe a 40-day period of mourning for his father.

Still, if Golovkin does take on Chavez in July, that will only be five months removed from his father's demise. Since the two were extremely close, according to Golovkin trainer Abel Sanchez, it could be dicey to take on someone like Chavez, who, if in shape can be a beast.

Sanchez, however, told us Tuesday he feels better about all of it after receiving some photos from Kazakhstan, where Golovkin remains.

"About a week and a half ago and several times after that, I've gotten some real good reports from his management, sending me pictures of his running, of his already on the track, showing me his weight," Sanchez said. "So I think if he's already doing that, then that has to tell me he has some kind of motivating factors that are going to be used for that fight and for the rest of his career.

"I believe his father was an integral part of his life and his family life is very, very important to him. That's why he keeps it so private. But just getting those pictures, that he's already running 10 days ago ... Maybe he made a promise to his father. I would imagine that he is going to continue on and do everything he can do to make his family proud."

Sanchez: It will be a tough fight

Chavez has been a maligned fighter - even when he was champion - because of poor training habits. But he perhaps got the message when journeyman Bryan Vera took him to task in September at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif. Talent-wise, Vera is no match. But his desire was way higher than that of Chavez, who the week of that fight changed the weight from 168 to 173.

Vera went out and fought his way to what many thought should have been a victory. But Chavez got the nod on the scorecards. Six months later, in San Antonio, the two did it again and Chavez left no doubt in a rather one-sided victory.

Assuming this deal gets done, Sanchez has no doubt Chavez will be Golovkin's toughest opponent.

"Oh, most definitely," Sanchez said. "I think that we have to be cognizant of the fact that Julio is going to be 185, 190 pounds by the time he steps through the ropes. I think that's something we have to be very, very aware of and not let him hang on us and make it a kind of fight where there's too much wrestling.

"Gennady needs to box him. Not necessarily boxing him from the outside, but just make sure that he slips and counters and not allow Julio to get into any kind of a warfare like he did with Vera."

Golovkin is 29-0 with 26 knockouts. That's a knockout ratio of 89.6 percent. But Chavez inherited a granite jaw from his pops, so getting him out of there will be extremely difficult.

"I do believe that Julio has a great chin, so it's going to have take some work for Gennady to put him out or stop him or make him quit on the stool or make the corner stop it," Sanchez said. "But we've got our work cut out for us, it's not an easy fight."

Robert Morales covers boxing for the Los Angeles Daily News and BoxingScene.com.