LAS VEGAS --- If this was, as one national magazine proclaimed, “the fight to save boxing,” it probably didn’t, and if the world was indeed waiting, it probably still is, but it was, nonetheless, an unexpectedly good fight, one better than we had any right to expect.

Floyd Mayweather won a split decision over Oscar De La Hoya at the MGM Grand Garden Saturday night, and while he walked away with the Golden Boy’s WBC 154-pound belt, it was hardly the cakewalk most experts thought it was going to be.

For the sports books in Vegas it doesn’t get any better than this -- a trifecta of Cinco de Mayo, the Kentucky Derby, and a megafight all on the same day, and after De La Hoya came out with both guns blazing to dominate the first third of the fight, the largely pro-Oscar crowd of 16,200 allowed themselves to entertain fanciful thoughts of cashing their bets on the 8-5 underdog.

Althouh it produced the richest live gate in the history of Las Vegas and almost certainly, once all the precincts have reported, will have drawn the largest pay-per-view sale as well, Mayweather-De La Hoya is unlikely to claim a spot on anyone’s list of the great Las Vegas fights of all time. Hagler and Leonard, Hearns and Duran, Chavez and Tyson can all sleep safely tonight. Their legacies are safe.

It had, nonetheless, a big-fight feel, with A-list celebrities (where else can John McCain rub elbows with JLo, Leonardo DiCaprio with John Madden, Helen Mirren with Joachim Noah, Tom Jones with Fiddy Cent?) and an electric atmosphere that only intensified when De La Hoya bopped Mayweather with an overhand right a minute into the fight.

And for a while, anyway, there was at least the illusion of a competitive fight. Punching with both hands, De La Hoya not only cut the ring off, but was able to walk Mayweather straight back to the ropes.

De La Hoya had predicted that he might have to chase the quicker Mayweather around all night long, but argued that if that happened, “you’re going to be surprised to see that I may be faster than he is.”

And over the first four rounds, which Mayweather fought mostly in retreat, De La Hoya was indeed the quicker of the two. Mayweather was able to sneak in a few uppercuts with his back to the ropes, but he didn’t become truly effective – or assume control – until he stopped running and stood his ground five rounds into the fight. Once Mayweather got his own jab going, the pace of the procededings altered considerably.

Early on, De La Hoya was able to snap Mayweather’s head back with his jab on several occasions, but as the night wore on Oscar all but abandoned the weapon.

“For some reason,” the Golden Boy offered nonsensically, “it wasn’t the night of the jab.”

In the run-up to ‘The World Awaits,’ the assumption had also been that De La Hoya’s vaunted left hook would be the equalizer, if there was to be one, but that weapon almost never made an appearance.

Mayweather maintained that he was responsible for De La Hoya taking the hook out of play.

“I saw the shots coming. I stayed on the outside,” said Pretty Boy,” who modestly proclaimed his performance on this evening “a masterpiece of boxing.”

CompuBox punchstats had De La Hoya throwing more punches (587-439), but Pretty outlanding Golden, 207-122. Mayweather’s 138-82 advantage in power punches was even more pronounced.

Although much of it was flash and dash, De La Hoya was determined and gave a much better account of himself over the first half of the fight than anyone had a right to reasonably expect.

That probably extends to the ringside judges, who appeared to reward the Golden Boy for many punches Mayweather was catching on his gloves and forearms.

And while on several occasions he was able to bull Mayweather to the ropes and through what he hoped would be flurries of scoring punches, Oscar never seemed to be inflicting any real damage.

And, moreover, Mayweather seemed to be a willing accomplice.

“He was rough, he was tough, but he couldn’t be the best in Pretty Boy,” boasted Mayweather.

What seems more likely is that Mayweather’s caution may have been inspired by the knowledge that he was for once fighting a man demonstrably larger than he, and prudence suggested he guard against the big shot by allowing Oscar to indulge himself with the non-lethal ones.

Somewhat improbably, De La Hoya led on two of the three scorecards after nine rounds, but Mayweather won the last three rounds on Roth’s card (as well as on ours) and two of the three on Giampa’s to close the show.

De La Hoya appeared to noticeably weary down the stretch, and all but abandoned his jab. Of course, the fact that by then Mayweather was landing right-hand leads almost at will might also have inhibited the soon-to-be-ex-champion.

Over the first half of the fight, Mayweather whistled right hands past De La Hoya’s chin on at least half a dozen occasions. If he was just missing then, he couldn’t miss over the last four rounds, when Oscar couldn’t get out of the way of the right.

(Pretty Boy claimed that he had hurt his right hand in the fifth, which, oddly, is pretty much the point at which he took control of the fight.)

In their final tallies, Giampa (116-112) and Roth (115-113) favored Mayweather, overruling Kacmarek’s card, which somewhat bewilderingly had De La Hoya ahead 115-113.

Boxing Talk card had it 116-112, concurring with Giampa’s.

Kacmarek’s dissenting opinion, in any case, not only made the fight seem much closer than it was, but gave De La Hoya an excuse to quibble over the decision.

“I felt I won,” said Oscar. “I felt I landed the harder and crisper punches. You’ve got to beat the champion decisively.”

(The same thing had apparently crossed Mayweather’s mind. Although he noted that De La Hoya “threw a lot of punches and they weren’t landing,” Pretty Boy said, “It’s a Golden Boy promotion. Anything can happen.”)

The split decision also fueled immediate speculation about another fight between the two.

If the world was awaiting, it may have to wait a bit longer for a rematch. The winner, who sported a swolled right eye, said afterward he was retiring from boxing, while the ageing winner sounded tempted to fight on.

“I am still retiring,” said Mayweather, still unbeaten at 38-0. “I’m going to move on to bigger and better things. I have nothing else to prove.”

“I’ve got to go back to the drawing board and see how my body feels,” said De La Hoya, now 38-5. “But this is a game I love, and the fight game is what brought me to where I am.”

In the co-feature, Rocky Juarez made an impressive return to the featherweight ranks, capturing a unanimous decision over Illinois’ Jose Hernandez.

Juarez, who lost two close challenges to Marco Antonio Barrera in junior lightweight title fights last year, said of his return to 126 “I felt great. It’s my natural weight.”

Juarez scored a knockdown in the second when he stepped inside a Hernandez jab and thumped him with a short counter right.

“I dropped him, but I couldn’t finish him because he was still dangerous,” said Juarez.

“Juarez is a very good fighter,” said Hernandez. “He hurt me several times, but I was well prepared and I could finish the fight.”

Juarez-Hernandez was advertised for the WBA’s FEDELATIN title, but Juarez said he was now pointing for the organzation’s ‘interim’ title.

Juarez (27-3) led comfortably on the scorecards of all three ringside judges -- Adelaide Byrd (117-110), Burt Clements (116-111), and Glenn Trowbridge (115-112.) Boxing Talk also had it 116-111.

In a battle of unbeaten 112-pounders, Filipino Rey (Boom-Boom) Bautista dominated the final  to earn a unanimous decision over Argentine Sergio Medina in their WBO title eliminator.

Bautista, who had been assessed a point by referee Robert Byrd following a decidedly borderline fifth-round low blow, decked Medina with a left hook with a minute left in the sixth.

But in the seventh, Medina turned the tables, catching Bautista with a big right hand followed by a  left hook. Bautista reached out and grabbed the ring rope to keep from going down, leading Byrd to give him a count.

Following that scare, the 21 year-old Bautista reassumed control, and sealed the deal when he scored another knockdown with an eleventh-round roundhouse right.

Dave Moretti had Bautista, 116-108, while Paul Smith and C.J. Ross both scored it 115-109. Bautista improved to 23;0, while Medina, who will also be heard from again, went to 28-1. It was Medina’s first fight outside Argentina.

Another Philippines fighter, Alex Banal, despite being docked a point by Jay Nady (for a low blow) in the third, was an easy victor in his junior bantamweight bout with Mexican Juan Rosas. Banal (13-0-1) won by scores of 78-73 twice (Dalby Shirley and Patricia Morse Jarman) and 76-75 (Al Lefkowitz). Rosas fell to 25-3 with the loss.

Two unbeaten Englishmen fighting on the card as a result of the newly-struck working relationship between Golden Boy and British promoter Mick Hennessy met with vastly disparate results.

Junior welter John Murray held up his end of the bargain. Murray (21-0) was handily ahead on all three cards when Lorenzo Bethea’s cornerman climbed onto the apron to rescue his man, leading Vic Drakulich to stop it at 0:28 of the seventh. Drakulich had deducted a point for low blows from Bethea (6-5) a round earlier.

The other Brit, welterweight John O’Donnell, didn’t fare so well. Dropped in the very first round by Mexican journeyman Christian Solano, O’Donnell was floored by a big left hook in the second, and although he made it to his feet, referee Joe Cortez stopped it at 1:50 of the round. O’Donnell is now 15-1, Solano 20-11-4.

Australian import Billy Dib (16-0) outpointed Jose Gonzalez of East L.A. in their 8-round junior lightweight bout. Bill Graham and Dick Houck favored Dib by the same 78-74 margin, while Jarman had it incrementally closer at 77-75.

California junior welter Ernest Johnson fought to a draw with Texan Hector Beltran in their eight-round prelim. Shirley scored it 77-74 for Johnson, Robert Hoyle 77-75 for Hoyle, while Houck had it even at 76-76.

Undefeated Cuban cruiserweight Carlos Duarte remained that way, advancing his pro mark to 6-0 in spoiling the pro debut of local Calvin Rooks when Nady stopped the bout at 1:54 of the second.

An hour after the main event had ended, there ensued what sounded like a subplot for an encore episode of ‘24/7’, as Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer somewhat hoefully  suggested the possibility of a scoring mixup. Although Schaefer conceded that the judges’ cards had been totaled properly, in his Teutonic attention to detail he discovered the red and blue corners were reversed on the cards. For this argument to have any validity, of course, one would have to to assume that the three judges couldn’t tell Mayweather from De La Hoya without knowing which color corner they had been assigned.

“A fight of this magnitude should not end like this,” said Schaefer. “But I haven’t been able to reach anyone from the Nevada commission or, amazingly, from the WBC.

At long last Schaefer said that he would not protest the decision on such a flimsy technicality.

“I am convinced it was an honest mistake,” he said.


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‘THE WORLD AWAITS’
MGM GRAND GARDEN ARENA
LAS VEGAS
May 5, 2007

JUNIOR MIDDLEWEIGHTS: Floyd Mayweather Jr., 150, Grand Rapids, Mich. Dec. Oscar De La Hoya, 154, East Los Angeles, Calif. (12) (Wins WBC title)

CRUISERWEIGHTS: Carlos Duarte, 190, Cuba TKO’d Calvin Rooks, 185, Las Vegas, Nev. (2)

WELTERWEIGHTS: Christian Solano, 152, Los Mochis, Mexico TKO’d John O’Donnell, 146, Croydon, England (2)

JUNIOR WELTERWEIGHTS: John Murray, 139, Manchester, England dec. Lorenzo Bethea, 139, Atlantic City, N.J. (7)

Ernest Johnson, 137, Chula Vista, Calif. drew with Hector Beltran, 152, Dallas, Tex. (8)

JUNIOR LIGHTWEIGHTS: Billy Dib, 128, Sydney, Australia dec. Jose Gonzalez, 128, Los Angeles, Calif. (8)

FEATHERWEIGHTS: Rocky Juarez, 125 1/2, Houston, Tex. Dec. Jose Hernandez, 125 1/2, Round Lake, Ill. (12)

JUNIOR FEATHERWEIGHTS: Rey Bautista, 122, Candijay, Philippines dec. Sergio Medina, 122, Salta, Argentina (12)

JUNIOR BANTAMWEIGHTS: Alex Banal, 115, Cobu, Philippines dec. Juan Rosas, 112, Tepic , Mexcio (8)

 

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