Two local sports analysts on Monday thumbed down the perception that Oscar de la Hoya let Manny Pacquiao win their Dream Match held Saturday in Las Vegas (Sunday in Manila). They said that such notion would be unfair to both fighters who gave their utmost inside the ring.

For veteran fight analyst Ronnie Nathanielsz, such a notion is plain ridiculous.

“It’s very sad that anybody can even imagine that a fighter of the caliber and the character and the decency of Oscar de la Hoya will even think of such a thing as taking a dive. What is there to gain?” said Nathanielsz of InsideSports.ph.

The analyst, who is also a contributing writer to abs-cbnNEWS.com, said he sees no point in de la Hoya getting himself bruised up to take the same amount of purse money.

“Getting beaten up and battered, spoiling his good looks, make the same money, and even getting beaten so badly, nobody will even think of a rematch? I hate to say this but I think it’s a ridiculous proposition and unfair to Pacquiao,” he said.

'Plainly getting old'
Lawyer and sports analyst Eduardo “Ed” Tolentino said de la Hoya did not sell out his fight to Pacquiao. He said the boxing superstar merely grew old.

“I think he just plainly grew old, it was father time that caught up with him. Same with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Sugar Ray Leonard, he has stayed too long in this business,” said Tolentino.

Another factor was Pacquiao’s superb speed, which made de la Hoya really look bad, according to Tolentino.

“Manny forced him to grow old overnight. Manny was too fast, and it brought out the 50-year-old version of de la Hoya. We never saw the golden boy, it was an apparition, he was never there at all,” he added.

Nathanielsz said that aside from his trademark speed, Pacquiao reinforced his usually lacking defense by just trying not to get hit.

“The style of Pacquiao was move in and out, come in from all angles. And you see, he did a great thing,” he said. “When de la Hoya tried to jab, he moved to his left. And he spun him around, and then moved from different angles. De la Hoya had no chance to catch him.”

Nathanielsz added that although de la Hoya’s camp refused to admit it, their fighter is still nursing an old shoulder injury. The analyst said this cost de la Hoya the match.

“’Yung kaliwang balikat, meron siyang problema. That accounts for his lack of throwing the jab. You take away the jab from de la Hoya, he has nothing, because his right hand is in his back pocket as [Freddie] Roach says,” said Nathanielsz.

Dream Match: a 'sell out'?
Sports analyst Al Mendoza earlier hinted that de la Hoya might have sold the fight with the way he performed against Pacquiao during the Dream Match.

"Kung didiretsuhin natin, parang benta (If we want straight talk, it's like he sold the match)," said Mendoza, Business Mirror sports columnist.

Mendoza, who rooted for de la Hoya before the fight, said Pacquiao threw 333 punches in the fight of which 59 percent found its mark. On the other hand, de la Hoya threw about 164 bombs but less than half hit the Filipino boxer.

He said de la Hoya's performance was so listless that the referee could have warned the Mexican as early as the sixth round that the fight would not continue if de la Hoya did not box.

He also downplayed reports that de la Hoya's age and weight loss resulted in him losing the fight. "Loss in weight should not be a factor, especially with [de la Hoya's] caliber. He has people who could train him to offset that," he said.

In the end, however, Mendoza said he will not belittle Pacquiao's victory since the Pinoy boxer trained very hard for the fight and deserved the win.

"We're not belittling [Pacquiao's] win but his opponent was not very good. This was a TKO without hardly putting up a fight. De la Hoya was like de la Hopia," he said. -- With a report from TJ Manotoc, ABS-CBN News