STANDING COUNT

By Lance Pugmire

May 7, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

LAS VEGAS —

Retire, rematch or rethink?

Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Sunday began what’s expected to be a week, and perhaps beyond, of wrestling with their career options after Saturday night’s split-decision victory by Mayweather that forced De La Hoya to part with his World Boxing Council super-welterweight belt, and may cause him to end his stirring 15-year career.

“We’ll see. I go back [home] to Puerto Rico and talk to my family,” De La Hoya said. “It was a great fight. I don’t feel like a loser. I came to do what I had to do.”

Saturday’s sellout fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena was so close that had judge Jerry Roth scored the 12th round with a 10-9 score for De La Hoya as fellow judges Chuck Giampa and Tom Kaczmarek did, the bout would’ve been a draw, and De La Hoya (38-5) would have retained his belt.

The De La Hoya camp isn’t fond of Roth. He awarded Felix Trinidad a two-point victory over De La Hoya in a 1999 fight. De La Hoya took the high road on the judging, however, saying “you have to respect” them.

The bout was so close that Floyd Mayweather Sr. said he thought De La Hoya -- and not his son -- had “pressed enough” to win the fight.

It was so close that De La Hoya’s business partner, Richard Schaefer, briefly considered protesting the outcome based on a scorecard discrepancy. A Nevada State Athletic Commission official mistakenly wrote that the boxers were in opposite blue- and red-colored corners.

The administrative assistant, identified by Keith Kizer, the commission’s executive director, as Colleen Patchin, confronted Schaefer after the fight for making a big deal of the miscue that hadn’t altered scoring: “So I made a ... mistake, get over it,” Patchin barked at Schaefer.

And as Cinco de Mayo was ending, a sober reality was taking hold that perhaps the 1992 Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion had reached the end of his career.

De La Hoya’s wife, Millie, told The Times she was pregnant and believed that delivering the news to her husband that night would help sway him toward retirement, where he can devote his attention to his family and running his less physically taxing company, the thriving Golden Boy Promotions.

“Whatever he decides ... “ Millie said late Saturday.

Schaefer, Golden Boy Promotions chief executive, spoke about De La Hoya in a reflective tone early Sunday morning.

“Oscar is such a great champion, he gave the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world an amazing fight,” Schaefer said. “What he needs to do is get some distance from this fight, and see what he wants to do.

“A great champ like Oscar deserves when he retires for it to be his decision, and his only. If he retires, he does so off a great performance, and the thing he takes is that when Oscar got into the ring and left it [Saturday], the people were cheering. No matter how much money you make, you can’t buy that, because it’s from the heart.”

Even Mayweather, who spent much time trashing De La Hoya leading up to the bout, conceded his foe is “a great champion.”

Mayweather (38-0) has also claimed he would retire, but the doubters are everywhere, and they include his uncle and trainer, Roger Mayweather, who proclaimed right after the bout that his nephew “ain’t quitting.”

Roger Mayweather said his eighth-round order for Floyd Jr. to stay away from the ropes and fight De La Hoya in the center of the ring was the deciding development. Floyd Jr. won four of the last five rounds on the cards of Roth and Giampa.

“It was a mismatch in the middle of the ring,” Roger Mayweather said. “If Floyd hadn’t gone on the ropes for those couple of rounds, it’d have been a shutout.

“If I’m Oscar, though, I’m thinking, why not fight Floyd again? Look at the money we made.”

Driven by a cross-country promotional tour and an HBO reality series, the fight’s live gate was $19 million, 25,000 closed-circuit seats sold out in Las Vegas for $50 each, and the pay-per-view buys at $54.95 each are expected to exceed 1.3 million.

Yet, the public interest in a rematch is uncertain.

A pay-per-view television industry source admitted he wonders that the public “wanted it before Round 1. Do they still want it after Round 12?”

Schaefer says if De La Hoya asks, he’ll suggest rejecting a Mayweather rematch, arguing that De La Hoya has “nothing to prove [and] gave the guy a hell of a fight.”

Of “The World Awaits” promotion, boxing historian Bert Sugar said, “We promised the moon, but did we acquit? I say no. I’ll concede that if boxing is a dying sport then at least we got a health plan tonight, but was it a great fight? No. And Oscar’s the ATM machine of boxing. If we lose him, we lose our biggest draw.”

Added Sugar: “Floyd’s not charismatic. But he’s got a legacy now.”

Sugar said Mayweather is “worthy of entry now” in his book titled “Boxing’s Greatest Fighters,” a ranking of the 100 top boxers of all time.

Where the 30-year-old fighter goes from here is an unknown. Mayweather said after the fight he’s “not here to talk about fights anymore.”

He made a noted effort to come across as more friendly in the post-fight news conference, however, hugging De La Hoya after swearing and getting in his opponent’s face often during their previous news conference appearances. He also urged fans in attendance late Saturday night to not judge him strictly on his rough behavior on the HBO reality show “De La Hoya-Mayweather 24/7.”

“I love my family and I love you guys,” Mayweather said.

His manager and advisor, Leonard Ellerbe, said the boxer could pursue movie, television or music business ventures. Or he could return to the ring -- maybe against Shane Mosley, who owns two victories over De La Hoya.

When that was mentioned to Mosley on Sunday, he smiled and threw three air punches in excitement.

“It all starts [this] morning,” Ellerbe said. “Floyd will do what he wants to do.”

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Split decisions

Oscar De La Hoya has lost five of his last 10 title fights:

2007 -- Floyd Mayweather Jr. Lost in 12

2006 -- Ricardo Mayorga Won by TKO, 6

2004 -- Bernard Hopkins Lost by KO, 9

2004 -- Felix Sturm Won in 12

2003 -- Shane Mosley Lost in 12

2003 -- Yori Boy Campas Won by TKO, 7