Las Vegas, NV (My Sportsbook) - Bernard Hopkins successfully defended the undisputed middleweight championship of the world Saturday night, as he knocked out Oscar De La Hoya with a body punch in the ninth round.
Hopkins landed a left hook to the liver of De La Hoya, who crumbled to the canvas in obvious pain, counted out at 1:38 of the ninth round. Hopkins improved to 45-2-1 with 32 knockouts, as he defended his title for the 19th consecutive time.
De La Hoya (37-4, 29 KOs), nicknamed "The Golden Boy," came out strong in the bout. Rather than running as expected, De La Hoya stood in front of Hopkins and attempted to use his superior hand speed.
The strategy worked for a while, as De La Hoya controlled the first few rounds. But as the bout wore on, Hopkins became more confident and began to find the range.
At the time of the stoppage, Hopkins was handily leading on two of the three judges' scorecards. He held a 79-73 advantage and a 78-74 lead on two of the cards, while the other had De La Hoya up 77-75. But it was apparent that the tide of the fight was in Hopkins' favor at the time of the knockout.
"I wanted to show everybody that I could box," explained Hopkins of his early round strategy. My trainer Bowie Fisher came up with the plan to come in lighter and faster, and still have power."
"I felt the urgency," said Hopkins. "I knew Oscar was boxing a good boxing game, and I knew I had to turn it on. I give him credit, he didn't run and he came to box. It surprised me."
The megafight was billed as the "Quest for History," and before the bout many had compared it to the Marvin Hagler-Sugar Ray Leonard bout of 17 years ago, in which the former Olympic gold medalist Leonard moved up in weight and outboxed the longtime middleweight champ Hagler in an action-packed affair.
This bout mirrored that one coming in, but the action and the outcome was much different. The bigger, stronger middleweight imposed his will and emerged victorious.
De La Hoya, arguably the game's biggest draw, earned $30 million for the bout, triple the amount due to Hopkins, who earned $10 million, the biggest check of his 16-year career.
Hopkins landed a total of 99 out of 361 punches thrown (27 percent), while De La Hoya landed 82 of 315 thrown (26 percent). Hopkins connected on 62 power punches of 147 thrown (42 percent), while De La Hoya nailed 45 of 151 (30 percent). Each fighter landed 37 jabs.
On the undercard, Juan Manuel Marquez retained his WBA featherweight title with a unanimous decision over Orlando Salido of Mexico. Marquez dominated the bout and won by large margins on all three judges' scorecards -- 118-110, 117-111 and 117-111.
Marquez improved to 43-2-1, with 33 of his victories coming via knockout. Salido fell to 20-8-1.
This was Marquez' first bout since a draw with slugger Manny Pacquiao in May when he was knocked down three times in the first round.
Also, Kofi Jantuah shocked Marco Antonio Rubio with a 33 second knockout to earn the WBC super welterweight top contender's spot. Jantuah landed a thunderous left hook to make it an early night.
