On
November 23, 1992, De La Hoya made his professional debut. He won titles in 6 different weight divisions including junior lightweight, lightweight, super lightweight, welterweight, junior middleweight and middleweight. He also beat former and current world champions
Troy Dorsey (TKO 1),
Jorge Paez (KO 2),
Genaro Hernandez (TKO 6),
John John Molina (W 12),
Rafael Ruelas (TKO 2),
Julio César Chávez (TKO 4, TKO 8),
Miguel Angel Gonzalez (W 12),
Jesse James Leija (TKO 2),
Pernell Whitaker, Hector "Macho" Camacho (W 12),
Ike Quartey (W 12),
Arturo Gatti (TKO 5),
Javier Castillejo (W 12), and
Fernando Vargas (TKO 11). His losses include a majority-decision loss to
Félix Trinidad; two decision losses (one split and one unanimous) to
Shane Mosley; a split decision to
Floyd Mayweather, Jr.; and the only knockout he has suffered during his career, by
Bernard Hopkins (KO 9).
On
September 14, 2002, de la Hoya fought
"Ferocious" Fernando Vargas. Their feud had begun when de la Hoya allegedly laughed at Vargas years earlier when Vargas fell into a snowbank. De La Hoya won the fight at 1:48 of round 11 (TKO 11).
On
May 3, 2003, as part of the
Cinco de Mayo festivities, he retained his
WBC and
WBA world junior middleweight championships when the corner of former world champion
Yory Boy Campas threw in the towel, and officially gave de la Hoya a seventh round technical-knockout win. On
September 13, he and former rival Mosley met once again, in Las Vegas, and Mosley won De La Hoya's world title belts via unanimous decision. De la Hoya would later demand an investigation into the scorecards.
De la Hoya next challenged
Felix Sturm for the
WBO world middleweight title on
June 5, 2004. He was awarded a unanimous decision, to become the first boxer in history to win world titles in six different weight divisions. All three judges scored the bout 115-113 in favor of De La Hoya.
Compubox statistics counted Sturm as landing 234 of 541 punches, while counting De La Hoya as landing 188 of 792.