MANNY PACQUIAO TKO end of 8 OSCAR DE LA HOYA

RINGSIDE REPORT: So many people got it so wrong. What some thought would be a mismatch turned out to be a mismatch in reverse when Manny Pacquiao pasted Oscar De La Hoya for eight rounds in the so-called Dream Match in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Far from being the weaker, smaller man, Pacquiao looked much stronger and also much harder-hitting than De La Hoya.

What surprised me, most of all, at ringside, was how little steam there seemed to be on De La Hoya’s punches. Pacquiao was the puncher in the fight and no mistake. Right from the start he was hurting De La Hoya.

When De La Hoya was retired by his corner after eight rounds it was eerily reminiscent of the way the Golden Boy obliged Julio Cesar Chavez to surrender a decade ago — also after eight rounds. The difference was that Chavez was semi-competitive and even made a desperate rally. De La Hoya showed nothing. As Angelo Dundee put it when we chatted at McCarran airport after the fight: “The kid came up empty.”

Empty just about sums it up, but Pacquiao obviously had a lot to do with De La Hoya’s wretched showing. His upper-body movement and quick moves had the older fighter looking perplexed. The speed and power of Pacquiao’s punches actually seemed to shock De La Hoya, who looked old, slow and painfully vulnerable.

It was as if this was a pale impostor of the De La Hoya who just 19 months earlier had fought Floyd Mayweather Jr. — the world’s No 1 at the time — to a close, split decision. De La Hoya didn’t even show the form he did when he outpointed Steve Forbes in May.

Pacquiao punched with excellent technique from his southpaw stance, sharp and accurate, and he was superior in every department and in fact was made to look a bit of a bully, such was the one-sided nature of the affair.

A 2-1 on favourite at the MGM Grand sports book before the line was taken down, De La Hoya looked as if he didn’t belong in the same ring as Pacquiao.

Boxing is indeed a strange business. Fighters who are generally expected to win or at least to be competitive, sometimes, in the parlance of the game, don’t show up. We saw it when Steve Molitor melted down against Celestino Caballero, and now with De La Hoya.

Pacquiao was tremendous, let’s make that clear, and his trainer, Freddie Roach, put together a strategy that was simple yet stunningly effective, but De La Hoya was almost like a man mesmerised.

To me, De La Hoya looked uneasy and lacking in confidence from the start, whereas Pacquiao looked loose and relaxed and also very self-assured.

It was as if Pacquiao knew he was going to win and De La Hoya knew he was going to lose.

The body language of fighters can tell you a great deal.

Even before the off, I was having misgivings about De La Hoya’s chances. Word circulated at ringside that De La Hoya had come in at an astonishingly light 147 pounds on HBO’s fight-night scale — 1 1/2 pounds lighter than Pacquiao. This set the alarm bells ringing. A ringside neighbour who had action on De La Hoya immediately started laying off all his online bets. A laptop computer can be a godsend in moments such as this.

The pre-fight vibe, it seemed to me, was good for Pacquiao, bad for De La Hoya. In the second round, I said to the people seated next to me: “This fight is over.” The gentleman on my left, covering for Vanity Fair (now that’s a publication not often on hand at the fights) said: “I’m going to put that in my story.” I guess I’ll have to pick up a copy of Vanity Fair to see if I do in fact get mentioned in the upscale publication although I suspect I will end up on the cutting-room floor, so to speak.

The pundits who picked De La Hoya (oops, that would include me) were mildly chided by Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, in post-fight comments. I’m always surprised when winners react this way. It was like Bernard Hopkins gazing down reprovingly at press row after the win over Kelly Pavlik. If the majority of the reporters are picking against a fighter, it makes his victory all the more meaningful, surely?

These picks are nothing personal. It is just an opinion being expressed. My own opinion was that Pacquiao would put up a tremendous fight but come up short. Oh well, I was right about the “tremendous fight” part — I never made this a blowout-type win for Oscar although some good judges did.

Pacquiao is now, as Arum put it, “the king of boxing”. He looks formidably strong as a junior welter (a muscled 142 pounds at the official, day-before weigh-in) , and projected fights with Ricky Hatton or Floyd Mayweather Jr — said to be “unretired” — are potential blockbusters for the new year.

It is fights of this magnitude that will keep boxing very much alive even in these troubled economic times.