De La Hoya showed heart of a people’s champ

Well, the world still awaits. Maybe they can save the slogan for the next mega boxing match.

In the minds of most of Saturday night’s sellout crowd of 16,700 in the MGM Grand Garden, and probably in the view of millions of those watching on pay-per-view telecasts around the world, Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s split-decision victory over Oscar De La Hoya was a bum deal.

It was a night that had color, sound, celebrity and lots of people seeing the 154-pound title fight with their hearts and not their eyes. When the decision was announced, the crowd responded with several choruses of the ever-favorite bull ... bull.... They can shout things like that here because, what is yelled in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

If this were a morality play, the bad guy won. The guy with the black hat and the smirk ran off with the girl. Mayweather is nothing, if not unpopular, and that is magnified tenfold when he is throwing punches at America’s Golden Boy.

Mayweather snarled his way through several months of promotion for this fight, said he’d win, said De La Hoya wasn’t fast enough to catch him or keep up with him.

And whether or not the public likes it, he was right. Along press row, where the fight is observed more with eyes than heart, it was almost unanimous. Mayweather was too good, too fast, too durable and landed more than enough significant punches to offset a series of showy and semi-effective flurries by De La Hoya.

On this night, being objective was difficult.

De La Hoya is the Tiger Woods of his sport, even while he is no longer dominant nor dominating.

He is the face on the billboards, the reason people still pay some attention to a sport that seems to shout and con its way from fight to fight, with inflated assessments of its next great fight, which, in boxing, is just its next fight.

To be fair, Mayweather-De La Hoya lived up to its advance noise. De La Hoya is now a 34-year-old warrior who was sincere in his vision of one more moment of greatness. Frankly, even in defeat, he had it.

He chased Mayweather early, did his best to stick to a game plan, which was to punish the younger fighter with artillery to the body and wear him down enough to take him out in the 10th round. But by the fourth round, he appeared to tire and the chase became tougher, the punches less and less effective.

Mayweather, for his part and that of his team -- obnoxious and cocky though it may be -- knew what was happening, let De La Hoya tire a bit, and then started landing some big shots. Mayweather fought a smart fight. This was no dope in the ropes.

The evening began strangely, even for boxing. Mayweather, the challenger at this weight, entered the ring first and he was wearing a huge sombrero. His team wore green and red shirts with the words on the back: “Mayweather Loves Mexico.”

Mayweather has about as many ties to Mexico as Paris Hilton -- unless there is a jail exchange program. So some interpreted the shirts and the sombrero as a slap at De La Hoya and his Mexican fans. Others took it as a nice gesture. In boxing, half of what happens makes no sense.

His Mexican-march entrance was accompanied by rap music. Go ahead, scratch your head.

After a rousing rendition of the National Anthem by Marc Anthony, preceded by the introduction of a long list of celebrities that brought a bigger cheer for Tommy Lasorda than for Denzel Washington -- go figure again -- the months of anticipation finally ended. At 8:25 p.m., it was finally showtime on HBO.

And perhaps 15 minutes later, it was becoming clear that De La Hoya, as hard as he chased and as hard as he tried and as much as he wanted this, was not as fast and not as solid a puncher and was not destined to win this fight.

The final statistics said a lot. Mayweather threw 481 punches and landed 207; De La Hoya 587 and landed 122. In the end, De La Hoya’s approach had been lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The final result also said a lot. It said De La Hoya should quit. He gave it his best last shot. He carried his sport for most of his career.

He owes nothing to anybody and he owes himself to stop while his faculties remain sharp, intact. His promotions company, Golden Boy, will do just fine with him sitting behind a desk, rather than on a stool in a ring.

Boxing, of course, will clamor for a rematch. That’s what boxing does. In so many ways, it eats its young and its old. Good effort, Oscar. The end was classy, dignified. Winning isn’t everything.

As for Mayweather, who lists himself from Grand Rapids, Mich., and who has lived in Las Vegas for many years, he has finally found the real home he has always wanted.

He now resides at the top of the world of boxing. Alone.

*

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.