DE LA HOYA IN STYLE - CAMPAS CORNER THROWS IN THE TOWEL
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By Ron Brashear
Inside Boxing Writer/Columnist

(IB – May 3, 2003) – In front of a sellout crowd on hand at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas, “Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya (36-2, 29 KOs) clearly dominated Yory Boy Campas (80-6, 69 KOs) by landing the cleaner, more effective punches.

De La Hoya did his job, period. He was supposed to come out and show superiority over the aging Campas, he did. Oscar was supposed to be able to overwhelm Campas with his speed, he did that as well. This was merely target practice, which the compubox stats indicated that De La Hoya landed 53% of his punches (264 out of 498). I had De La Hoya winning every round as well by landing effective 3-4 punch combinations to the head and body at will. Although Campas was very cagey and did put forth a commendable effort in defeat tonight, he was taking a beating and it would have been very hard to find reason to let him continue.

By the time of the 6th round, Campas had a point deducted for having his mouthpiece fallout, or should I say knocked out, for six times. Then at 2:54 of the 7th round, Campas’ corner had seen enough and threw in the towel.

So the stage is now set. We will get to see the highly anticipated rematch between De La Hoya and Mosley on September 13th of this year. Oscar stated after tonight’s victory, “Shane I will get you.”

I must say that I agree. In all likelihood, De La Hoya will prevail over “Sugar” Shane Mosley in the rematch at 154 lb weight class. Its obvious how much avenging the defeat means to Oscar, and I’m sure he will be ready and will rise to the occasion as he has done so many times in the past. I just see Oscar being the stronger of the two at this weight and ultimately, that is what is going to make to the difference.

In the co-feature bout, Erik Morales (44-1, 33 KOs) overpowered the Challenger Fernando “Bobby Boy” Valradez (24-5-1, KOs) and stopped him at 1:02 of the 5th round to retain his WBC Featherweight title.

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Ron Brashear can be contacted at brashear@insideboxing.com, ron@brasheargear.com