The Golden Boy Loses More of His Luster

He landed a right hook, then two left jabs, then another left jab, punching wildly, with passion and fury.

For the first time Saturday night, Oscar De La Hoya was really hitting something.

The blue canvas where he was sprawled on his knees.

He couldn’t hurt Bernard Hopkins, so he was taking it out on the less mobile and infinitely softer floor.

Only after being knocked out by Hopkins in the ninth round of their middleweight title fight at the MGM Grand did De La Hoya finally show the skill and ferocity that have marked his career.

It was not only a sad sight, but an ominous metaphor.

Will boxing’s Golden-in-More-Ways-Than-One Boy ever again be as successful inside the ring as out?

He didn’t seem like it Saturday, where nothing he did could match the whir of his hype and roar of his fans.

After he was dropped by Hopkins with a liver shot 1:38 into the ninth round, De La Hoya’s first instinct was to roll out of the ring.

If this night of sullen boxing was any indication, perhaps he should keep on rolling.

Either that, or $30 million doesn’t buy what it used to.

At the time De La Hoya was dropped, this ringside viewer had Hopkins winning the previous six rounds and growing more powerful with every step.

According to statistics, De La Hoya landed 82 punches, but, honestly, I saw only two or three that even dented Hopkins.

According to the crowd, De La Hoya was winning the fight, but, seriously, it didn’t seem close.

It was becoming such a mismatch to some that, when De La Hoya stayed down after what appeared to be a relatively basic body shot, there was speculation that he no longer wanted to fight.

When both fighters later said it was a punch to the liver, that speculation ended. Any boxer will tell you that a direct hit on that vital organ can cause such pain that legs buckle and the torso freezes, leaving one helpless for 15 to 20 seconds

Said Hopkins: “I heard him go ‘Woooooo.’ I knew I knocked the wind out of him.”

Said De La Hoya: “He got me right on the button.”

Said Hopkins: “It was chopped liver with a little bit of sauce on it. Hopkins sauce.”

It was the first time De La Hoya had been knocked out in his career, but it was essentially the second time he has lost in four months, considering he was given a questionable decision against Felix Sturm in a warm-up in June.

It was also the fourth time in his last five tries that he has lost a marquee championship fight, and now you wonder.

How many more of these nights have to occur before fans stop paying?

How many of these fights have to happen before De La Hoya starts listening?

Will his associates allow the ring of the cash register to make them ignore the ringing in their fighter’s ears?

De La Hoya acted afterward as if he was winning the fight, and would have won the fight except for that one little punch.

“I made this an easy fight for me,” said De La Hoya. “What I tried was working.”

Somebody should tell him that standing in front of your opponent and throwing surprisingly weak punches that either didn’t connect or hurt him is not the definition of “working.”

When is the last time the best thing his opponent could say about De La Hoya involved a clench?

“He was a crafty little son of a gun,” said Hopkins. “He would hold me. He would hold me like a death hug.”

De La Hoya won the first two rounds mostly by chasing while Hopkins circled and took measure.

But then when Hopkins figured out exactly where De La Hoya was, everything changed.

In the third round, Hopkins nailed him with a right. In the fourth, he hit him with a flurry that De La Hoya could counter only with an apparent low blow.

In the fifth, he staggered him with a left that sent him bouncing sideways into the ropes.

By the eighth round, De La Hoya was disappearing into Hopkins’ three-inch-longer reach, unable to hurt him while Hopkins kept rolling up the points.

The ending was sudden, but it wasn’t.

At least he didn’t use the excuse of a heavily wrapped left finger that had been sliced by his cut man on Wednesday, requiring 11 stitches. But he said something just as odd.

“I tried to do the impossible, to go from 130 to 160,” said De La Hoya, talking about his career increase in weight for this fight. “But it was impossible.”

Oh, so he hypes this thing for six months and sells into more than a million living rooms around the country and now he tells us that it was impossible?

Do you remember when nothing with Oscar De La Hoya was impossible?

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Playing Great Defense

Bernard Hopkins’ victory Saturday was his 19th successful defense of the IBF middleweight title. Boxers with most consecutive successful defenses (only WBC, WBA and IBF titles are recognized).

*--* Division (Weight) Fighter Title Years No. Heavyweight (195+) JOE LOUIS Undisputed 1937-49 25 Strawweight (105) RICARDO LOPEZ WBC 1990-99 21 Middleweight (160) BERNARD IBF 1995-present 19 HOPKINS Welterweight (147) HENRY Undisputed 1938-40 19 ARMSTRONG Featherweight (130) EUSEBIO WBA 1978-85 19 PEDROZA Junior-Bantamweight KHAOSAI WBA 1984-91 19 (118) GALAXY Junior-Featherweight WILFREDO WBC 1977-83 17 (126) GOMEZ Junior-Flyweight (108) MYUNG WOO YUH WBA 1985-91 17

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