ALL IN ORDER AT CASA OSCAR

In a fight that stirred echoes of great battles of the past, Oscar De La Hoya withstood moments of crisis and came back to break down and then destroy the younger, bigger and stronger “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas in their light-middleweight unification championship at the sold-out Mandalay Bay casino resort in Las Vegas on 14 September.

The packed crowd of 11,425 and a world-wide live pay-per-view television viewing audience (next-day recording on BBC in Britain) saw the 29-year-old De La Hoya settle, surely once and for all, the question of whether or not he has the heart and toughness of a great champion. Rest assured, he does.

He had to overcome adversity and anxious moments. But through it all De La Hoya showed skill, chin, smarts, conditioning and firepower — and also a few defensive lapses — before blasting his rival into disarray in a thrilling 11th-round ending.

De La Hoya was in a fight, make no mistake, as he withstood heavy shots to head and body. At times he was driven to the ropes, where he covered up under barrages from Vargas, 24, that were a veritable firestorm of punches. 

But De La Hoya stayed cool and composed, and came back, using the left jab to knock back Vargas’s head and disrupt the rhythm of the younger man, letting fly with hooks and right hands that always threatened danger, going to the body with stiff jabs and rapid-fire lefts and rights.

After nine rounds, this fight of shifting fortunes was evenly poised and looked as if it could go either way. But De La Hoya took command conclusively in the closing moments of the 10th round before flooring and stopping a worn-out and disorientated Vargas in the 11th.

The left hook that dropped Vargas on his back and to all intents ended the fight in round 11 was one of the most beautifully delivered blows of De La Hoya’s career as he captured the World Boxing Association super welter championship while defending his World Boxing Council belt.

Although Vargas got up at the count of four he had no legs and no reflexes, just that immense heart. He had the same vacant, “out of it” look that he did when Felix “Tito” Trinidad dropped him for the first of three knockdowns in the final round in this same ring almost two years earlier. 

And Oscar, like Tito, is not one to let a stricken rival off the hook. He was all over Vargas as soon as referee Joe Cortez had completed the eight count, driving his opponent to the ropes in De La Hoya’s corner of the ring and raining punches on him until the referee mercifully signalled the finish after one minute, 48 seconds of the round. Vargas left the ring under his own steam but was taken to hospital for observation as a precautionary measure.

The vivid and dramatic conclusion capped a fight that, until the 10th round, was so intensely competitive that no one could be sure who was going to win.

There were moments of dominance from De La Hoya but these were answered by heavy-handed surges that drove the Golden Boy back and brought roars from the Vargas faction.

On the outside, De La Hoya seemed able to outbox and even outclass Vargas. His left jab sent Vargas’s head snapping back, drawing blood from the Ferocious One’s nose and cutting his right cheek. And De La Hoya’s right hand was an effective weapon, too: he steadied Vargas several times with the right.

But when Vargas closed the distance and fired his hooks and right hands he seemed clearly the bigger puncher and the more powerful of the two men, especially when he got De La Hoya on the ropes. De La Hoya’s right cheek bore an angry red blotch from the first round, his nose leaked blood from the fifth.

Despite post-fight denials, I believe De La Hoya was hurt a few times, especially in the first round that, after a sharp-boxing start by the Golden Boy, became one of the rockiest rounds of his career as Vargas bullied and battered him on the ropes. But he flashed Vargas a defiant grin as the round ended. 

There were to be other moments when his chin would be tested, but he stood up to Vargas’s best punches and kept coming back with the jab, the hooks, the rights. 

Promoter Bob Arum said afterwards: “This has to go down as Oscar’s statement — the fight that marked him as a great fighter — because he had to come back from adversity.” 

And Arum is probably right. 

Against Vargas, he moved and boxed but he also stood and fought. And the blockbuster ending removed the judges from the equation. He surely now has redeemed himself fully for the late-rounds back-pedalling against Tito Trinidad.

But while the finish left no doubts, the fight actually was headed for a split decision in favour of De La Hoya. After 10 rounds, judges Paul Smith and Doug Tucker each had De La Hoya ahead by 96-94 while Patricia Jarman-Manning saw Vargas leading by 97-94.

From my ringside position I saw it as an even fight coming out for the 11th. But Vargas had shown definite signs of fading in the 10th. He had lost his sharpness of the earlier rounds and the jabs seemed to be affecting him more. And, right at the end of the 10th, a beautiful, short left hook had Vargas’s legs seriously buckling for the first time. The bell saved him, but he was unsteady and bleeding from the nose as he went to his corner. 

De La Hoya knew, we all knew, that Vargas had reached the end of his tether. Suddenly this compelling and evenly fought contest had become man against boy — and Oscar was the man. Vargas was fighting on heart and instinct in the 11th. He had nothing else left. Then the left hook blasted him down and all that was left was for De La Hoya to close the show.

For 10 rounds, though, we had been kept in suspense by this tough, competitive, compelling encounter.

But, as many in the trade believed might be the case, the greater experience of De La Hoya played a big part: all those big fights, with 34 wins — 27 opponents halted — against two close losses. Vargas, although a two-time world champ, had only had 23 bouts (22 wins, with 20 KOs).

Even when Vargas was driving forward and having his impressive moments, he was burning up physical and mental energy. De La Hoya, in contrast, stayed relaxed, often dropping his hands and rolling his shoulders in the so-called “black fighter” style taught to him by Floyd Mayweather Sr, who was training him for his third bout in a row.

But De La Hoya was pacing the fight in the manner of a seasoned pro, his handsome features a study in concentration. Vargas, although right in the fight until almost the very end — in fact he won the ninth round on all three judges’ scorecards — was suddenly struggling in the 10th, as if his arms and legs had weights on them. De La Hoya, meanwhile, still had bounce in his legs and snap on his punches. It looked as if De La Hoya would box his way to a decision. 

Then the left hook in the dying moments of round 10 had Vargas out on his feet and the minute’s rest period was not enough for him to pull himself back together.

And so De La Hoya achieved what has to be one of his most satisfying victories, bearing in mind the long-simmering animosity between the two men. 

But it was not a performance without flaws. He took perhaps a few too many right hands, seemingly because he is still not entirely comfortable with the moves that Floyd Mayweather Sr has been teaching him. But De La Hoya admitted: “It’s a learning process.”

Mayweather said afterwards he’d give De La Hoya a B-plus for his performance. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” he said. “He’s not doing everything I want yet, but he’s made tremendous progress. He’s not as robotic, and he’s a two-handed fighter now — he’s got a right hand as well as a left.” 

De La Hoya got caught by some punches, the trainer said, because although he got his left shoulder up the way Mayweather showed him — an old-school defensive tactic — he made the mistake of pulling back. “With the shoulder defence, you don’t do that,” Mayweather said. “Oscar pulled back, he didn’t close up — that’s the only reason he got hit.” 

He said he wants De La Hoya to be more active from now on, this being the Golden Boy’s first fight in 15 months after injury to his left wrist caused the bout to be postponed from its original date in May.

And De La Hoya seems enthusiastic.

After keeping the media waiting for about an hour, as is his way after a fight, he came out in a black tank top and wearing a black baseball cap to tell us: “I feel great — actually I feel fresh. It was a tough fight. He felt heavy, but I knew it was a matter of time. I knew that he was going to get tired in the later rounds.” 

Although he was pressured on the ropes in the first round, when a Vargas hook had his right cheek reddened and puffy, De La Hoya said he was never hurt.

“The objective was to brush [deflect] a lot of punches,” he said. “In those flurries he missed 80, 85% of his punches. That’s a way I lure my opponent in, to get him tired. He was missing a lot of shots. I was prepared for anything.

“He took some heavy shots. My intelligence and my conditioning pulled it off for me. With the belly shots I was hitting him, whether it was a jab or a right hand, I saw his face kinda like squint, like he was hurt, so I feinted and threw the left hook and caught him flush. I could have come back with the right hand, but I guess he was already falling.

“I should have used my jab more. I should have stayed on my toes more, but it’s a learning process. The time will come when the whole package just falls into place. But I’m hungry — hungrier than ever. May the next one come, get in line and let’s do it again.”

Promoter Arum said that the only two fighters with wins over De La Hoya — Tito Trinidad and Shane Mosley — are numbers one and two on the list. But he said that it is up to Trinidad to decide if he wants to fight again. 

As for Vernon Forrest, the welterweight champ and 1992 Olympic teammate of De La Hoya’s, Arum said: “Vernon Forrest is a tremendous young man and a great fighter but I’d like to get him in with an Hispanic fighter to get him better known in the Hispanic market.”

And Winky Wright, the International Boxing Federation champion? “He’s a tremendous, tremendous fighter but he’s got to get better known,” Arum said. “I’m an old man, I’m not looking to lose millions of dollars.”

Vargas’s handlers tried to present a case for a rematch. Kathy Duva, president of the Main Events organisation that promotes Vargas, called the fight “one for the ages” and suggested it could be the first instalment of a classic series. 

But in this eagerly anticipated showdown between two Mexican-Americans from southern California, De La Hoya — after s