It’s All De La Hoya at End

A fierce and fine-tuned Oscar De La Hoya cut loose Saturday night, and all but cut down and conked out Hector Camacho.

It was no knockout, but there were plenty of knocks.

In a test of De La Hoya’s ability to sustain the firepower--and Camacho’s will to remain upright though logic and health dictated otherwise--De La Hoya punished Camacho, earning a dominant, unanimous-decision victory before 13,644 at Thomas & Mack Center to retain his World Boxing Council welterweight title.

Though De La Hoya had predicted a seventh-round knockout, his overwhelming aggression was a complete departure from his deferential, relatively disappointing (and disputed) decision victory last April over Pernell Whitaker, another slippery veteran left-hander.

After the fight, De La Hoya said he was pleased by his performance and celebrated it with gusto as the crowd roared.

“It was very difficult to hit Macho Camacho, but tonight I was very happy with my performance,” said De La Hoya, who attended the postfight news conference holding an ice pack over his swollen left eye--the result of an early head butt. “Even though I didn’t score a knockout, I did give him some punishment.

“I was a bit frustrated, yes, because he would be holding a lot. But that’s the way Hector Camacho fights. If he cannot win fights, he just tries to survive. Hector Camacho does not want to be knocked out. As the rounds went by, I was ripping to the body.

“This guy took some shots, I really can’t see how he stood up.”

Said a swollen-faced Camacho: “He earned it. He did everything he said he was going to do, except he didn’t knock me out.”

He almost did, which would have been the first knockout loss in Camacho’s 69-fight career.

Absorbing a devastating attack to his body and face, Camacho, who won only a single round on any of the three judges’ cards--he was shut out on the other two--went down for the second time in his career in the ninth round

But the 35-year-old Camacho scrambled to his feet, survived several other near-flops (including a face-first tackle of De La Hoya in the 11th), stayed on his feet by grappling onto De La Hoya, and did not go down again.

Seemingly wanting to inflict as much pain as possible, De La Hoya wrapped up the final three rounds by unleashing the most focused body attack of his career, crackling dozens of left hooks to Camacho’s right rib cage.

By CompuBox Inc. statistics, De La Hoya (26-0) pounded Camacho with 373 punches, landing an astonishing 340 power shots at a 51% rate. Camacho did not run away so much as his body was rocketed backward by De La Hoya.

Camacho, by comparison, threw only 139 power punches, and landed only 54.

Camacho (64-4-1) was penalized a point for holding in the final round by referee Richard Steele, which De La Hoya said came far too late.

“He was very tricky, but I thought he held a lot,” De La Hoya said. “He was trying to survive in there.”

After the bout, De La Hoya good-naturedly scrambled up to Camacho and demanded payment for a bet they made:

If Camacho lost, De La Hoya could cut off the curl on Camacho’s forehead. If De La Hoya had lost, he was to have paid Camacho $200,000.

Said Camacho before an unruly postfight news conference in front of thousands of fans in the arena: “The bet could be paid off. But I think I’ll be the bad boy of boxing and since he said he’ll knock me out in seven rounds and he didn’t, I ain’t going to give him . . . “

So Camacho, who entered the ring dressed in a black garb complete with face shield and helmet, escaped without sacrificing the curl.

“Let me punch you in the face a couple of times and see what you could do,” Camacho said when someone from the crowd questioned him about his holding.

“It was either holding or running; I couldn’t run, so I had to hold.”

The slam-dance began right off the bat, when De La Hoya sent Camacho bounding backward with a short left 20 seconds into the fight. Camacho was staggered, but within seconds shook off the daze.

This was a pattern that would mercilessly continue throughout, as De La Hoya chased down Camacho, then blasted away from distance, which would trigger Camacho’s grappling.

“He fought a damn good fight. Oscar is the best I’ve ever fought,” Camacho said.

In the ninth round, De La Hoya opened with a sizzling left to the chin, then followed with a left to the body that badly hurt Camacho. Sensing that, De La Hoya pounced on Camacho against the ropes. A few moments later, De La Hoya landed a clean right on the chin, then a hard left with 30 seconds left in the round, Camacho fell backward under the ropes.

Camacho looked as if he could go down for good late in the 11th, when De La Hoya set loose a blistering combination to Camacho’s face and body, toppling him over forward, but he grabbed De La Hoya before he fell, and pushed De La Hoya 15 feet and to the ground.

It was ruled a slip as De La Hoya gestured angrily at Steele.

“I felt I was on the verge of maybe stopping him,” De La Hoya said. “What he did was hold me and with his weight he kind of rushed me and fell down on my shoulder that had been injured before.”

De La Hoya postponed a fight with a previous minor rotator cuff injury to the same shoulder last year, but his orthopedist, Tony Daly, said it shouldn’t cause a delay in De La Hoya’s scheduled Dec. 6 fight in Atlantic City, N.J., against Wilfredo Rivera.