De La Hoya vs Quartey 1999: Knockdowns, a Twelfth-Round Storm and a Split Decision Still Disputed
Oscar De La Hoya and Ike Quartey traded knockdowns in the sixth round in Las Vegas in February 1999 before a final-round rally helped De La Hoya keep the WBC welterweight title on a split decision that Quartey still rejects.
On 13 February 1999, two unbeaten welterweights met at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas with the WBC title at stake. Oscar De La Hoya and Ike Quartey traded knockdowns in the sixth round, De La Hoya threw everything he had left into the twelfth, and the judges split. More than two decades later, Quartey still says the fight was his.
Two Unbeaten Records Under One Roof
De La Hoya walked in as the WBC welterweight champion with a perfect 29-0 record and 24 knockouts. Born in East Los Angeles in February 1973, he had won lightweight gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and the nickname "Golden Boy" followed him into the professional ranks. He took the WBC belt from Pernell Whitaker on a unanimous decision in April 1997. Defenses followed against David Kamau, Héctor Camacho, Wilfredo Rivera and Patrick Charpentier, among others.
Isufu "Ike" Quartey, born in Accra, Ghana, in November 1969 and known as "Bazooka," brought a record of 34-0-1 with 29 knockouts. He had boxed for Ghana at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. In June 1994 he stopped the unbeaten Venezuelan Crisanto España in the eleventh round to take the WBA welterweight title, then defended it seven times, against opponents including Vince Phillips and Oba Carr. The WBA stripped him in August 1998 for inactivity. His Wikipedia biography says personal and business problems kept him out of the ring for about 14 months before he faced De La Hoya. He was known for a fast jab and a heavy right hand.
The money showed who was the draw. Wikipedia's account of the fight lists purses of $9 million for De La Hoya and $4.5 million for Quartey. The Associated Press put the crowd at roughly 12,000.
The Sixth Round: Both Men on the Canvas
The sixth round is the one people remember. In its opening seconds De La Hoya landed a left hook and Quartey went down. The AP report timed the knockdown at 12 seconds into the round. Quartey got up quickly and went straight back to work.
Later in the same round Quartey put the champion down. The sources differ on the punch. The AP described it as a right to the head, while Wikipedia's fight article calls it a left hook. Either way, De La Hoya also rose quickly, and the round ended with both men's unbeaten records still standing. The AP's punch figures for the round credit Quartey with 33 landed from 64 thrown and De La Hoya with 23 landed from 44, which made it one of Quartey's busiest and most effective stretches of the night.
A Fight Slipping Away From the Champion
After the sixth, Quartey's jab kept him competitive. In a column for the University of Arizona's student paper, the Arizona Daily Wildcat, writer Mike Jenkins said that the television commentators and an unofficial ringside judge had Quartey in front going into the last round. HBO's unofficial scorer Harold Lederman, according to Wikipedia, finished with Quartey winning 114-113.
De La Hoya later called the fight the first real test of his career, and by the final round it looked like a test he might not pass on the cards.
The Twelfth-Round Storm
De La Hoya came out for the final round looking to end the fight. A left hook dropped Quartey again early in the round. The AP timed it at 12 seconds. The Wildcat column put it at about half a minute, and Wikipedia records a standing eight count. Quartey stayed on his feet afterward, and De La Hoya drove him to the ropes and kept punching.
The figures quoted in Wikipedia's fight article show how hard he pushed: 69 punches thrown in the round, 41 landed. The AP said he kept up the assault for about a minute before he began to tire. Quartey covered up, took the punishment and lasted to the final bell. "He just wouldn't go down. I thought I had him," De La Hoya told the AP afterward.
Split Decision, Conflicting Cards
The judges divided. England's Larry O'Connell scored the bout 115-114 for Quartey. The other two cards went to De La Hoya, and the reported numbers do not agree across sources. The AP report listed John Keane of England at 115-113 and Ken Morita of Japan at 115-112. Wikipedia's fight article gives the winning cards as 116-113 and 116-112, and the Wildcat column also cites a 116-112. All the sources agree on the outcome: De La Hoya kept the WBC title on a split decision and stayed unbeaten at 30-0.
The AP noted that Quartey looked disgusted when the result was read. De La Hoya called his opponent very, very tough and argued that he had given the public the action-packed fight it wanted to see.
The Dispute That Never Settled
The decision drew criticism right away. In the Wildcat column, Jenkins objected that a four-point margin implied De La Hoya had dominated, and wrote that, in his view, the experts at ringside had Quartey ahead. Wikipedia's article on De La Hoya calls the result "somewhat disputable," which sums up how it is usually remembered: a close fight, the champion's late knockdown, and a verdict many observers questioned.
Quartey has never accepted it. In a 2020 interview with Ghana's Graphic Online he argued that a fight is judged over all twelve rounds, not one. "I won that fight and everyone knows it," he told the paper. In the same interview he blamed boxing politics for the result.
What Came Next
The two fighters went in very different directions. De La Hoya fought again in May 1999 and stopped Oba Carr in the eleventh round. On 18 September 1999 he met Félix Trinidad in a welterweight unification bout billed as the Fight of the Millennium RingTalk covers that night in a separate article.
His Wikipedia biography says Quartey's interest in boxing faded after the loss. He stayed out of the ring for another 14 months, then lost a unanimous decision to Fernando Vargas for the IBF light-middleweight title in April 2000. After that he was away for five years. He returned in 2005, won three fights, and then lost close, disputed decisions to Vernon Forrest and Winky Wright in 2006. That was the end of his career. The night in Las Vegas remains his best-known fight, a defeat he still regards as a win.
Sources
- Split decision: De La Hoya beats Quartey, Deseret News (Associated Press), 14 February 1999
- Sports column on De La Hoya vs Quartey (Mike Jenkins), Arizona Daily Wildcat, February 1999
- Oscar De La Hoya vs. Ike Quartey, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
- Ike Quartey, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
- Oscar De La Hoya, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
- I lost interest in boxing: Ike Quartey, Graphic Online (Ghana), 9 June 2020
