INQUIRER Sports

LAS VEGAS?Nacho Beristain watched as the fighter who had singlehandedly helped boxing survive the dearth of talent at the centerpiece heavyweight division took a beating from a unrelenting pound-for-pound champion who seemed intent at squeezing every drop of greatness out of the 35-year-old legend?s body.

Before the ninth round could officially begin, the venerable trainer had seen enough.

He told referee Tony Weeks to end the fight and in that instant, amid an explosion of cheers and flashbulbs, Manny Pacquiao accomplished what seemed impossible just eight rounds before, crushing Oscar De La Hoya with an eight-round TKO victory Saturday in their welterweight ?Dream Match? at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Pacquiao started and ended the eighth round with a barrage of power punches that has made him one of the most feared predators in the sport and all it took was a look at the puffed-up face of boxing?s long-time poster boy to know that it was time to wave the white flag.

?I did not want to leave his greatness in the ring,? Beristain, who had hoped to turn De La Hoya into an effective counter-puncher in an effort to negate Pacquiao?s speed and power, told journalists through an interpreter after the fight.

So complete and so dominating was Pacquiao that De La Hoya needed to be rushed to the hospital as a safety precaution after the fight. And the Gen. Santos City native admitted to being one of those who couldn?t stand the sight of the former Olympic champion getting beaten up so badly.

?I also felt pity for him in a way,? Pacquiao said. ?But I had a job to do and that?s what I did.?

?He fought the fight we were supposed to fight,? said trainer Freddie Roach, who said he would have pulled the plug earlier.

?I think it should have ended a round or two before,? Pacquiao?s trainer said. ?Oscar was taking a lot of shots and his face was busting out.?

?He was connecting with nothing,? Pacquiao said after the bout.

As early as the second round, Pacquiao delivered on several combinations, including one capped with an uppercut that roused an underdog crowd after it clearly rocked De La Hoya.

But Roach feels that even before that, De La Hoya had little to offer.

?I knew it was over after the first round,? Roach said. ?He had been taking punches as early as that round.?

For some strange reason, De La Hoya wasn?t launching anything outside of occasional barrages that didn?t find its target. Not that it was an easy target to find.

?Oscar really couldn?t pull the trigger but a lot of that was Manny?s doing,? Roach said. ?He was moving so well, getting in, unloading punches and then getting out that Oscar really didn?t know where he was at times.?

De La Hoya had his moments, though, when he would connect with combinations and made it seem like he merely saving gas for the later rounds, where he is known to lose steam.

In an entertaining fifth round, De La Hoya jumped the gun with a jab. And although he absorbed several combinations by Pacquiao, he engaged the reigning WBC lightweight champion?who leapfrogged past two divisions to face the Golden Boy?in a fierce exchange, backing Pacquiao up at one point.

In the decisive eighth round, after finding himself caught in a whirlwind of combinations, De La Hoya sucked it in and went left-right to the body that forced Pacquiao to cover up, and then went for the head with another crisp combination.

But just as he was finally showing that he might be able to finally win a round, he let control slip away as Pacquiao danced his way inside the jab designed to hold him off . The jab was staring to get ineffective too as it looked more like De La Hoya was pushing it instead of flicking it.

Pacquiao countered with a four-punch combination that clearly hurt De La Hoya and made Beristain decide to end it after the bell. Actually, Beristain checked with his ward at the end of the eighth, asking De La Hoya: ?Are you dizzy? Do you have a headache??

De La Hoya shook his head and at one point of their conversation, said vamos (let?s go!).

But it wasn?t enough to convince Beristain.

?I had to stop the fight, there was nothing else to do this night so I had to do this,? said Beristain.

An elated Pacquiao dropped to his knees in a neutral corner in a celebratory prayer before the announcement by Michael Buffer made it official. The once one-dimensional former light flyweight had conquered what he deemed was his biggest challenge.

?I?m just happy that I made a lot of people happy,? said Pacquiao.