Oscar to Fight Campas in May

There was a time not so long ago when Oscar De La Hoya acted as if he couldn’t wait for his boxing career to end. Now, he can’t wait for his next fight.

Sitting at his downtown office, De La Hoya announced Thursday that he would return to the ring sooner than expected. He will take a May 3 tuneup fight in Las Vegas against Mexico’s Yory Boy Campas instead of waiting until his scheduled Sept. 13 rematch with Shane Mosley.

The fight with the 31-year-old Campas (80-5, 68 knockouts) will be at Mandalay Bay Events Center, anchoring a Cinco de Mayo weekend that will include World Boxing Council featherweight Erik Morales against San Bernardino’s Bobby Boy Velardez on the undercard.

In addition to agreeing to the Campas bout, De La Hoya, the WBC and World Boxing Assn. 154-pound champion, who will turn 30 on Feb. 4, said he is not ready to restrict the number of fights left in his career.

He expressed enthusiasm about eventually unifying the 154-pound title with International Boxing Federation champion Winky Wright, of showcasing a best pound-for-pound showdown with welterweight champion Vernon Forrest, of gaining a rematch sometime next year with the retired Felix Trinidad, and of finishing his career against middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins.

And Bob Arum, De La Hoya’s promoter, added, “Economically, a [Fernando] Vargas rematch would do so much ... I certainly would not count it out. There’s no question Oscar’s interest in the sport has become reinvigorated, and when Oscar conveys this much interest in the sport, that enhances the sport.”

De La Hoya, whose last bout was a defining 11th-round technical knockout of Vargas on Sept. 14, said, “As long as I’m feeling great, like I do now, I’m going to keep on fighting. I don’t know that it’s because of the Vargas fight or because of my wife, I just have this love of boxing. I love the sport. I love competing. Instead of getting older or getting hurt, my thinking is that I should fight all the fights I want now, then call it quits.”

The HBO pay-per-view bout against Campas provides De La Hoya (35-2, 28 KOs) an opportunity to train for a respected journeyman who won the IBF 154-pound title in 1997 and made three defenses before losing by a seventh-round TKO against Vargas. Campas, another of Arum’s Top Rank fighters, has also lost to Trinidad and Oba Carr.

“[Campas] is the kind of guy who really comes to fight, it won’t be a dancing contest,” Arum said. “That’s what Oscar needs. Do I think Yory will beat Oscar? No. But he will make it an entertaining fight. We look at this as an opportunity to stay sharp, so Oscar doesn’t have any ring rust on him against Mosley, which will be a difficult fight.”

Arum added he has received a “good, firm proposal” from Staples Center President Tim Leiweke to host the De La Hoya-Mosley rematch. Arum said that pending a detail involving promotion by the city, “we’ll probably have a deal done next week.”

After losing to Mosley at Staples Center in 2000, De La Hoya talked about retiring.

On Thursday, his enthusiasm went unchecked as he also promoted next week’s first “Boxeo de Oro” card at the Olympic Auditorium. The six-fight show, the first of a 12-fight series to be televised this year by HBO Latino, features a super flyweight fight between 2000 Olympian Jose Navarro of Los Angeles and Mexico’s Carlos Madrigal and a WBC super-bantamweight title fight pitting champion Oscar Larios against Marcos Licona. Boxing begins at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday.

“Boxing has room to grow, and I want to help elevate it,” De La Hoya said.