LAS VEGAS (AP) For Manny Pacquiao there was a call from his president and the overwhelming gratitude of a country that finally has something to celebrate.
For Oscar De La Hoya there was a trip to the hospital and the grim reality that all fighters must eventually face.
One fighter is on the verge of becoming boxing’s next superstar. The other will have to be content with the fact that his bank account is fat even if his reputation is permanently soiled.
Pacquiao likely will go on to even greater things, with big fights and even bigger money still to come. Assuming he has any brain cells left after the beating he took Saturday night, De La Hoya will go on to a life as a businessman and forget any thoughts of returning to the ring.
“His close friends and family should tell him it’s over,” trainer Freddie Roach said. “I don’t want him to end up with some disease like Parkinson’s. He’s very clear minded right now, but that could change.”
Fighters seldom listen to such talk. They always think they have one fight left in them, and they almost always fight one fight too many.
Unfortunately, those final fights can be costly to their health, as Roach knows only too well.
Roach trained De La Hoya for his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr., where he saw for the first time that De La Hoya couldn’t throw punches when he spotted an opening. In the opposite corner this time, he watched his fighter give De La Hoya such a beating that he quit after eight rounds of getting punched in the face.
More significantly, Roach has Parkinson’s himself.
No one knows for sure, but it’s likely he got it from being punched in the head way too many times. He, too, was told to quit, but fought five more times after that and took a beating in four of those fights.
Roach doesn’t have to be reminded that boxing is a hurt business.
“I hope Oscar has enough sense to call it a day,” he said. “I know he doesn’t want to go out like this but if he doesn’t go out, he might go out really, really hurt.”
De La Hoya was noncommittal in the ring after the fight, saying he wanted to continue fighting but is worried that the reflexes may not be there anymore. They certainly weren’t against Pacquiao, who was able to score at will mainly because De La Hoya couldn’t pull the trigger as he came inside.
Pacquiao was so dominant he won every round on two ringside scorecards and all but the first round on the third. The seventh round was such a massacre that Pacquiao was credited with landing 45 punches to De La Hoya’s head while getting back only four in return.
De La Hoya’s promoter Richard Schaefer began yelling to the corner to stop the fight in the final round, while his wife urged them to do the same.
In the end it was De La Hoya who simply declined to come out for the ninth round. If his career is indeed over, it ended ignominiously with him on a ring stool, unwilling to take a beating any longer.
