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Making his first ring appearance in almost two years, Oscar De La Hoya forced referee Jay Nady to step in at 1:25 of the sixth round after bombarding Ricardo Mayorga with a flurry of punches for the TKO victory last night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, winning the WBC Light Middleweight title in the process. De La Hoya set the tone by dropping Mayorga within the first minute of the fight with a devastating left hook, leaving a shocked “El Matador” on the canvas and the thirteen thousand plus crowd raised the roof of the venue with a deafening roar. De La Hoya went on to stun the Nicaraguan again during the first round and the amazing possibility of an early stoppage of the granite chinned Mayorga entered the minds of viewers but the hardened Central American fighter weathered the storm.
Despite another flush left hook landed early by De La Hoya in round two, the prideful Mayorga tried to steady his legs and counterpunch the forward moving “Golden Boy”, but Oscar mixed his punches well and kept a good defense to win the second round by wide margins.
De La Hoya continued to pursue his bitter rival in the third, a bit of a surprise to many boxing observers who expected the usual aggressive stalking from the boastful Mayorga. Dealing with an increasingly stiff jab from the so far perfect De La Hoya, Mayorga was still clearing cobwebs from the punishment of the first two rounds until from almost out of nowhere, the wild punching brawler landed a vicious right uppercut flush on the chin, stunning De La Hoya about halfway thru the round. Mayorga went on the attack for the rest of the frame, landing a few wild rights to the top of De La Hoya’s head, and did enough for two of the three judges to score the third in his favor. Mayorga walked back to his corner with his hands raised and the atmosphere in the MGM Grand Garden Arena was absolutely electric, as fans knew that they had a fight on their hands.
The combatants stood dangerously toe to toe to start round four, trading some wild left hooks. De La Hoya was obviously determined to stand his ground against the perceived bully who took trash talking to a new level during the pre-fight hype, targeting De La Hoya’s family and heritage, giving Oscar any extra motivation he needed to be at his best. The fourth was an energetic, fan friendly competitive round, ultimately won by De La Hoya’s well rounded boxing skills as he mixed in some solid right crosses with the left jabs and hooks. Mayorga once again raised his arms at round’s end, satisfied that he was now in a fight that had almost quickly slipped away.
Round five started competitively, with Mayorga still looking rejuvenated and swinging wildly, hoping to land a fight changing shot. There was some nice toe to toe action, but De La Hoya started to take over with his boxing skills halfway thru the round , and was now throwing boxing’s most underrated punch, the jab, with such effect that the crowd would gasp in amazement as it continuously snapped Mayorga’s head back.
A few power punching combinations soon had Mayorga reeling and in enough trouble by round’s end that he had resorted to holding Oscar with the left, and smashing three or four rights to the back of De La Hoya’s head before referee Jay Nady ran in to break the fighters up at the sound of the bell.
In the sixth, De La Hoya continued what was working, setting up his power shots with the jab and soon had Mayorga stunned again and on the canvas after a flurry of punches. Mayorga stared over at Oscar, almost in disbelief at what was happening, as he rose to his feet ahead of Nady’s count to continue the fight.
De La Hoya closed in with Mayorga up against the ropes and released and amazing flurry of twenty plus punches, before Mayorga wilted to the canvas, along with referee Nady practically tackling De La Hoya to save Mayorga from the onslaught. The Golden Boy beamed an ear to ear grin as he rose to his knees from the canvas, to the appreciative roar of his thousands of fans.
With the dominating victory, newly minted WBC Light Middleweight Champion Oscar De La Hoya, now 38-4 (30), enjoys a return to form not seen since his riveting performance against Fernando Vargas in 2002. Ricardo Mayorga loses for the third time in his last five contests to fall to 28-6-1 (23).
Contact Mark DeSisto: bostonsmarkd@yahoo.com
