BERT SUGAR'S POST FIGHT RECAP:
DE LA HOYA VS. MAYORGA

May 9, 2006 - by Bert Sugar

Although it might not rank up there in importance with Darwin's Theory of Evolution, last Saturday night Oscar De La Hoya contributed one ineluctable truth of his own to that growing body of truths that are quoted constantly: You cannot trash talk when you're eating leather.

In the weeks leading up to the De La Hoya-Mayorga bout, Ricardo Mayorga, cursing in two languages simultaneously, had dissed De La Hoya, his family and his heritage. But Oscar, provoked by Mayorga's "Eat My Dust" shtick, came out to beard the bully by walking right into the belly of the beast and in barely one minute had leveled the mouth that roared with one deep-dish beauty of a left.

Arising from the canvas with a look of awe mingled with admiration--almost a visual "Goddamn!" --Mayorga did something he had rarely done before, going into retreat after having tasted the might of De La Hoya's righteous--and leftist--indignation.

With Mayorga throwing wild punches that seemed to emanate from somewhere behind the second ringside row, most merely air conditioning the arena and De La Hoya blocking those that came within hailing distance, De La Hoya continually found Mayorga's inviting chin, staggering him twice in the second.

With his jab operating with metronomic frequency , De La Hoya began picking Mayorga apart, almost as if Mayorga had tatoo'd a sign reading "Hit Me Here" on his chin. And by the fourth had Mayorga back on his heels looking for somewhere to hide.

As De La Hoya would say after the fight, every time he hit Mayorga, he saw him reacting to his punches with a "squinch"-a newly-coined word that was a cross between a flinch and a squint.

And so it was in the sixth that De La Hoya made Mayorga "squinch" more than once, hitting him with a flurry of punches that came asfastasyoucanreadthis, dropping him on all fours for a count of eight. Then, almost before referee Jay Nady could wipe off Mayorga's gloves, De La Hoya was on him again, raining punch-after-punch on the defenseless soon-to-be-ex-champ--some say 18, others 21, and one writer, Mike Hirsley of the Chicago Tribune, claiming he counted six after Mayorga had dropped his arms in total surrender. Whatever the number, the effect was the same, with referee having had enough even if Mayorga hadn't and rushing in to save him at the 1:25 mark of the sixth round.

For Oscar De La Hoya this would be one of the most satisfying moments of his career. For not only had he avenged all the slings and arrows thrown at him by Mayorga but also erased the pain of the loss to Bernard Hopkins.

Now, like Jimmy Cagney in "White Heat," he stands "on top of the world." But what's next for Oscar? He already has a date in September penciled in against that dreaded opponent, "TBA." Will the name that is finally inserted be Floyd Mayweather Jr.? Or Felix Trinidad? Or will Oscar, having decided that he can never match his performance against Ricardo Mayorga and that his legacy, ending with a "W" and not a "L," is now complete, ride off into the sunset and into Golden Boy Promotions? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode in the Oscar De La Hoya saga...