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Trinidad wins in late rounds
"I thought I had it in the bag," De La Hoya said. "I swear I did. The 11th and 12th rounds, I was protecting the rounds I had in the bag."
De La Hoya's backpedaling backfired in a big way, however, and fighting to the final bell paid off for Trinidad, who won a majority decision Saturday night in the welterweight showdown at Mandalay Bay.
"My corner said keep attacking. I knew it was close. I put more pressure on him," said Trinidad, who landed several hard rights to De La Hoya's head in the final three rounds.
"I feel so happy," the 26-year-old Puerto Rican said at a Sunday news conference.
"Me, too," added Don King, Trinidad's promoter.
The unbeaten Trinidad, who defended the IBF 147-pound title and won the WBC championship, said De La Hoya deserves a rematch.
But a rematch will require an agreement between King and Bob Arum, De La Hoya's promoter, and negotiations figure to be acrimonious. The two promoters got into a shouting match after the fight.
Playing it too safe probably led to De La Hoya's first defeat, although he still might have lost had he fought more in the final rounds. The sellout crowd wished he had.
At the end of nine rounds, De La Hoya led 86-85 on the card of Jerry Roth of Las Vegas and 87-84 on the card of Glen Hamada of Tacoma, Wash. Bob Logist of Belgium had it even at 86-86.
Trinidad won all three final rounds and the fight (115-113) on Roth's card. Hamada also gave Trinidad the last three rounds and scored it a draw at 114-114, while Logist gave Trinidad the 10th and 11th rounds, De La Hoya the 12th and favored Trinidad 115-114.
The AP scored it 115-113 for De La Hoya, giving Trinidad the last three rounds.
In his defense against Ike Quartey, De La Hoya won the last three rounds, knocking down Quartey in the 12th, to keep the WBC 147-pound title.
"I was doing what I was trained to do -- box," De La Hoya said. "I landed a hundred more punches than he did."
A CompuBox punch analysis credited De La Hoya with landing 263 of 648 punches to 116 of 462 for Trinidad. The number of punches landed, however, does not necessary equate to effective punching.
"I'm not disappointed," De La Hoya said at a post-fight news conference, not attended by Trinidad. "If I felt like a defeated fighter, I'd feel bad. Now I know how Lennox Lewis feels."
De Hoya was referring the highly controversial draw between WBC heavyweight champion and WBA-IBF champion Evander Holyfield in a March 13 fight, which most people thought Lewis won. They will have a rematch Nov. 13 in Las Vegas.
A lot of people thought De La Hoya won, but there was a general air of disappointment rather than a sense of outrage. The match billed as the Fight of the Millennium between two power-punching champions wasn't even the Fight of the Year.
The pay-per-view fight will be rebroadcast on HBO at 9:45 p.m. EDT Saturday, Sept. 25.
De La Hoya said he will take a vacation and ponder his future.
Trinidad said he would arrive home on Monday. "I want to celebrate with all my people in Puerto Rico," he said.
While Trinidad has achieved hero status in Puerto Rico, he won't achieve De La Hoya's celebrity status in the United States. He does not speak English, which will limit public appearances and media attention and could hurt with endorsement deals.
A rematch with De La Hoya would be Trinidad's richest option. He could, of course, move up to the junior middleweight division (154 pounds). So could De La Hoya.
"I'm willing to give him a rematch under the same terms and conditions," King said. "Just switch the names."
King meant that he and Trinidad should get the biggest piece of the pie for a rematch. That piece, however, won't be as big as De La Hoya and Arum's were for Saturday night's match.
"De La Hoya went into the fight as a star and he came out as a star," said Lou DiBella, senior vice president of HBO, which has De La Hoya under contract. King has a deal with Showtime.
Arum, the main promoter for fight, said De La Hoya's purse was $15 million and that he got another $6 million from television. He said King got $10 million and that $8.5 million of that went to Trinidad.
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