Ten years ago today Oscar De La Hoya met Patrick Charpentier at the Sun Bowl for a scheduled 12-round welterweight title bout.
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June 14, 1998
By Robert Seltzer
El Paso Times
In an atmosphere more suited to a rock concert than a boxing match, Oscar De La Hoya flashed the only thing that is more disarming than his smile - his handspeed.
De La Hoya scored a technical knockout over Patrick Charpentier in the third round of a scheduled 12-round welterweight title bout on Saturday night at the Sun Bowl, dropping the challenger three times in the final round.
Charpentier hit the canvas almost as many times as he hit the champion; he landed only 5 of 111 punches, most of the blows so wild that they seemed to have been launched from the mountains surrounding the stadium.
De La Hoya landed an incredible 80 of 150 punches, almost all of them the kind of shots that make you see strobe lights, turning your world into an ugly combination of pain and brutality.
The crowd, which was announced at 45,368, erupted into wild applause, screaming, "Oscar, Oscar, Oscar."
"Thank you very much for all your support," De La Hoya said, grabbing the ring microphone and addressing the crowd. "I fought great. I thank the city of El Paso for giving me the opportunity to fight before you beautiful fans."
Then he paused.
"And I promise you one more thing," he said. "I will be back."
The fans screamed and shrieked, turning the stadium into a giant echo chamber, the noise bouncing off the concrete canyons of the concourses.
"Viva Mexico!," De La Hoya yelled.
Referee Laurence Cole stopped the bout at 1 minute, 56 seconds of the third round, with the challenger stretched out on the canvas, deposited there by a beautifully timed chopping right to the jaw.
"He was dazed, and he was definitely hurt," Cole said.
Perhaps like the fighter himself, the referee knew the end was coming soon after the second knockdown in the third round.
"After the second round, I stayed close to Charpentier," Cole said.
Perhaps, but not as close as De La Hoya did.
The champion is the greatest finisher in the sport, and once he realized his opponent was in trouble, he pursued him with the single-minded intensity of a contract killer.
De La Hoya kept punching until the challenger could no longer get up.
"I'm OK," Charpentier said.
Then he delivered the grandest understatement of the evening.
"It was the headshots," he said.
De La Hoya,
who holds the World Boxing Council version of the welterweight title,
raised his record to
28-0 with 23 knockouts, while Charpentier fell to
27-5-1 with 23 knockouts.
It was a fight that required a ballistics expert, not a referee.
"There was no three-knockdown rule," Cole said. "I stopped the fight."
But it was a good thing for the challenger that there was a referee.
De La Hoya, shunning the traditional boxing robe, stepped into the ring in a mariachi outfit, its silver spangles glittering under the television lights.
He waved to the crowd, which erupted into thunderous applause. Then, with the aid of his entourage, he shed his outfit, emerging with a simpler ensemble - white trunks and red gloves.
If the champion made a fashion statement, he would soon make another kind of statement, this one with his fists.
He started slowly, darting inside, then retreating outside, before landing the first meaningful combination of the opening round - a right to the chest, followed by a left hook to the ribs, both of which sounded like drum shots.
The challenger failed to land a single punch in the first round.
Charpentier fought more aggressively in the second round, but his wild punches missed badly, fanning the cool night air.
He took jab after jab, his head snapping backward like that of a crash test dummy.
The challenger seemed desperately overmatched.
The champion, unleashing the greatest arsenal in all of boxing, landed a left hook to the jaw early in the third round, dropping Charpentier onto the seat of his multi-colored trunks.
The challenger beat the count, only to collapse again, this time from a right uppercut to the chin.
He arose again - and he hit the the floor again, crumpling to the canvas from a short, chopping right to the jaw.
"I hurt him with some good uppercuts," De La Hoya said.
De La Hoya
hurt him with everything, throwing the kind of combinations that only
the greats are able to execute - hooks off uppercuts, uppercuts off
hooks.
He kept his opponent off balance because the combinations themselves seemed off balance - unorthodox flurries that he pulled off with grace and precision.
The champion was awesome.
"I was just trying to take my time," De La Hoya said.
Tell that to Charpentier.
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