OSCAR, IT'S TIME TO PUNCH OUT.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

Dear Oscar De La Hoya,

That's it, see ya. Wave us a happy goodbye. Give your best Looney Tunes sign-off and tell us, "That's all folks."

Then slip into the good night, count your trillions, kiss your beautiful wife, raise a happy family and maybe promote a few good fights.

Just don't box in them.

Don't put the gloves on unless it's for a photo shoot on the eve of your Hall of Fame induction.

Oscar De La Hoya, you are one lucky man. Rich, famous, successful and still a handsome devil.

Count your numerous blessings and call it a career.

Walk away healthy and wealthy. Sounds like a heckuva combo.

I understand you're not so sure. That you're mulling your professional future. Trying to find some distance between the defeat Saturday night to Floyd Mayweather Jr. before determining the next move.

Here's some really good free advice: retire.

Cash your latest mega-check. Go cut another record.

Sip a pina colada, head into that Puerto Rico sunset and call it the end of your fighting career.

There is, as everyone keeps telling you, nothing left to prove. No accolades that have not come your way, no bounty not thrown at your feet.

You're going down as the greatest fighter of your generation. It might not have been the greatest generation of fighters, but you were the best of the bunch.

Fought every top fighter of your time. Sold more pay-per-view tickets than any fighter in history. By the time they stop counting the total from Saturday's fight, it'll probably be close to a half-billion for your career.

That's some career, too.

An Olympic gold medal. A38-5 professional record. The first to capture titles in six different divisions.

You fought the best. Beat Julio Cesar Chavez, Pernell Whitaker, Hector Camacho, Ike Quartey and Fernando Vargas. The losses were against top fighters -- Felix Trinidad, Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins, and now Mayweather.

That's some resume, some career. A tremendous one.

One to bow out on.

Yet you're not sure. Saying things that sound like a man who can't let go. Saying things like:

"I'm going to be very smart about the situation. I will go home and watch the fight and see how my movements were, how my body reacted, and analyze the situation. I'll wait and see. I'll analyze the whole thing and think about it."

Great, think about it and then get logical. Get in touch not with your business side nor your emotional side, but the logical one. The one that screams, "Enough!" That screams to get out while the brain cells still function and the body is still fit.

Have one name for you. Right, you know who it is.

Muhammad Ali. Both the most beloved and pitied fighter of all-time. Absolutely the greatest fighter I ever saw. But he went into the ring too many times, took too many blows to the end. Now he has what they term pugilistic Parkinson's syndrome.

There are plenty of other cautionary tales, of punch-drunk boxers. Flat- nosed pugs we've seen too many times in video and film.

There is absolutely no legitimate reason to continue. You've been to the top of the mountain. Like Mayweather, you too were once called the best pound-for-pound fighter in boxing. Ring Magazine awarded you that honor -- 10 years ago.

You're 34 years old now. Still an excellent fighter, but not the same boxer you were a decade ago. Truth is, you've lost three of your past five fights. The best days as a boxer are clearly in the rearview.

There are only two conceivable reasons to keep boxing: the money and the recognition.

Suppose the money could be tempting, but how much money does a former poverty-stricken kid from East L.A. need? You've proved to be an astute businessman and understand the value of a big fight better than any boxer alive.

And no doubt a rematch would generate more millions.

The thing is, there's just not enough money in the world worth the loss or motor skills, worth the tremors and rigidity or memory loss.

Certainly you haven't lacked for recognition, but no fighter wants to go out on a losing note.

The thing about individual one-on-one sports such as boxing and wrestling that no one understands who has never participated is, it's not the great victories that come flooding back in vivid memories, but the losses.

The matches you believe you should have won but lost. The move you should have made, the moment you should have feigned or attacked or done something different.

Those moments haunt. Those moments stay with you a lifetime.

So, sure, you'd like to erase that last loss. Like to avenge the Mayweather fight. And people will make it financially tempting.

Mayweather has already tried to create interest in a rematch by saying he's going to do exactly what you should do -- retire.

There's not a sporting soul on planet Earth who believes him. And he's already said revealing things like, "I believe Golden Boy Promotions and Mayweather Promotions are going to meet again."

It's a set-up and you have to resist. Make one of your greatest moves walking away now.

You were the best Golden Boy since William Holden.

You deserve to enjoy your golden years, and those leading up to them.

Most assume a rematch is inevitable. Stun them all.

Wave a final goodbye. It can be your greatest victory.

Sincerely,

Steve Dilbeck

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