Afterward came the usual self-assured grin. In the swollen left eye, there might even have been a glimmer. The entire fa?ade of certainty to uphold — that was the one and only game plan.
“I’m not shocked,” Oscar De La Hoya said of being humiliated by the lightweight champion of the world.
He sure looked shocked.
De La Hoya was beaten in a way one writer called “sadistic” and Larry Merchant said was “getting embarrassing” about 10 minutes in. Manny Pacquiao, known to some as Pacman and all as magnificent, reduced the Golden Boy to a shell and then broke him like an enameled egg. The official result: TKO-8. The unofficial result: After being beaten in every one of 24 minutes, Oscar De La Hoya quit on his stool before the ninth round.
Actually, that doesn’t do the spectacle justice either.
Fact is, the fight was never close. Not from the first left cross Pacquiao landed. Not from the moment De La Hoya stood flatfooted at center ring, flicking his own left hand tentatively. Not from the moment, in other words, De La Hoya looked like a caricature of how Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach had described him.
For all the certainty he’d exuded in a four-part HBO infomercial three episodes too long, De La Hoya looked positively uncertain from the opening bell. Heck, he looked like a man with a nervous jaw-snapping tick during introductions.
Saturday brought the end of certainty for De La Hoya — and boxing itself. America became uncertain in September. Boxing just needed a few months to catch up.
Uncertainty marked a oddly certain end to the Golden Boy era. Farewell to selling fights more than making them. Farewell to undercards sneering at loyal fans. Farewell to prefight music videos about dogs that chase squirrels.
Merchant tried to make De La Hoya retire after he’d quit. No such luck. There was merely a promise that De La Hoya would really think about his future — the same promise he makes after every fight.
What comes next? It was the wrong strategy. It was the wrong diet. The wrong trainer. Bring back Floyd Mayweather Sr. Bring Michael Carbajal out of retirement. Bring in a new hand-wrapper.
But next time it’s not going to matter like last time. Boxing moved on Saturday night.
And De La Hoya’s trainer Nacho Beristain had nothing to do with it. Before he becomes the seventh scapegoat in a career filled with repackaging, let’s get that straight. Beristain deserved better than the charge he got Saturday night. Beristain knew it. The look he saw from his fighter in the seventh round was nothing the Brothers Marquez had prepared him for. Beristain saw resignation and fright. You can’t blame him for not knowing what to do with those.
Roach, meanwhile, deserved exactly what he got Saturday. Pacquiao was a monster. Had he not been drilled by Roach to stay patient, Pacquiao might have stopped De La Hoya in the third round. Or maybe the scenario was Roach as Frankenstein: Pacquiao had been prepped to beat De La Hoya long and pitilessly for firing Roach after one fight.
C’mon, you know the thought crossed your mind in the eighth.
It didn’t take long to see that while Pacquiao had faced much better fighters than De La Hoya — starting with Juan Manuel Marquez — De La Hoya had never faced anything like Pacquiao. The left cross landed so easily. So often. With such force. De La Hoya was more marked up after three minutes with Pacman than 25 with Bernard Hopkins.
In the second round, De La Hoya made his first and last genuine effort at imposing himself the way a cadre of experts predicted he’d do. Pacquiao took a step backward, then remembered he was Manny Pacquiao. He stepped forward. He dropped his lead shoulder. He snapped a right uppercut. And De La Hoya, foolishly bent at the waist, straightened up, his back and shoulders chasing after his chin.
Then it was De La Hoya’s right cross against Pacquiao’s left. A slingshot against a stealth bomber.
Imagine Beristain’s frustration. Surely he’d imparted in camp the one offensive strategy De La Hoya could have employed after the first round: Hook to the lead shoulder. That’s what Marquez had done in March. He’d thrown the left hook — blocked from Pacquiao’s chin by Pacman’s high right hand — at Pacquiao’s shoulder. He’d spun Pacquiao and frustrated him with it. And he’d taken 50 percent of the heat off Pacquiao’s left cross.
But Beristain was in a different fighter’s corner Saturday. No spinning. No countering. No return fire. No crazed passion. No imagination. None of it.
Then De La Hoya’s body quit. It was after about a minute in the seventh round. The weight loss plan that left De La Hoya incapable of gaining five pounds in 28 hours finished the night. De La Hoya went into his steering-wheel defense. He cowered in the corner. He became Pacquiao’s pitiable target.
The doctor and referee came over and threatened to stop the fight. God knows Beristain wasn’t going to do it. De La Hoya went out for three more minutes. Pacquiao carried him for 2:50. Then the paddles hit the mat, and Pacquiao attacked for 10 savage seconds. Then the doctor and referee told Beristain he had to stop the fight.
What comes next for Pacman? Anything he likes. Had the past 12 months — with nary a Mayweather in sight — not been such a blessed respite, you’d be tempted to call little Floyd out. Let’s not. Instead, let’s see Pacquiao fight Ricky Hatton at 140. It will be good theater. True theater for a change.
Whither boxing sans the Golden Boy? Saturday was a eulogy to what boxing had become. Homage to a different time. Boxing needs to discover a brand new model. Our sport’s survival now depends on it.
Bart Barry can be reached at [email protected].
