One punch and it was over. Everyone said it would be an Oscar De La Hoya left hook and it was. In an excellent back and forth fight, it looked as though Fernando Vargas was about to either pull even, or maybe even establish a lead on the scorecards. The 10th round was winding to a close and Vargas seemed to have outhustled De La Hoya for the second straight round.

That a tiring Vargas could outhustle a seemingly fresher De La Hoya in the 10th was impressive. Vargas had one of his biggest rounds in the previous frame, but that ninth round had been preceded by Oscar's best stanza of the fight up until that point.

Oscar repeatedly snapped Fernando's head back throughout the eighth with hard jabs and more straight right hands than I can remember seeing Oscar throw in any other significant round of his career. The Golden Boy's showing in that eighth round was significant not only because it seemed that his superior boxing ability was beginning to reveal itself, but because it marked the first time in the fight that he definitively won two consecutive rounds.

On the scorecards of many ringside observers he needed those two rounds to pull even after it appeared that Vargas had carried the sixth and fifth on his aggressiveness and heavy handed one-twos to the body and head (though from where I was sitting it was unclear how many of those head shots were landing cleanly).

Whether or not it is the best style for him, De La Hoya employed his newly learned Mayweather defense, turning his shoulder and head to nullify many of Vargas' salvos. Oscar's newfound defensive style has met with mixed reviews from critics who feel that its reliance on upperbody elusiveness gave Vargas offensive chances he would not have had if Oscar had relied more on his legs to carry him out of harm's way. Certainly it seemed that when the new champ was up on his toes, there was little the Ferocious One could do but eat left jabs.

De La Hoya employed the stick and move a strategy to good effect in the fourth, but in the previous round he had been outmuscled by the more massive and stronger natural junior middleweight. This after Oscar carried the second round.

The first round was perhaps the most interesting of the fight. From the opening bell it seemed that De La Hoya's class would tell early. He dictated the pace and the space of the fight, repeatedly beating Vargas to the punch, thereby controlling the distance at which the fight was being fought. But that distance -- a safe arms reach away for the taller De La Hoya -- was erased when a Vargas right hand caught him off balance and sent him stumbling into the ropes, where he became entangled. Vargas pounced opportunistically, flurrying before Oscar could set himself, and Vargas used that momentum to carry the rest of the round.

Though Vargas won that first round, there was something about the way it went down that left the impression that while Vargas' strength was indeed an advantage for him, he needed to be opportunistic to compete. In other words, whether or not Oscar would prove to be the better man, he was certainly the more skillful.

Yet there they were, with the final few seconds ticking away in a 10th round that Vargas may have won, in a fight he might have been winning, when it happened. A left hook from De La Hoya left Vargas waving like a flag in a lazy breeze. The bell rang, but there was little doubt that the fight would end shortly after it rang again for the 11th.

Sure enough, a short time into the next round, De La Hoya landed a left hook the likes of which Vargas had withstood for over half an hour of battle. Still feeling the effects of the bomb from a minute or two earlier, Vargas was knocked on his back by this one. He got up, but was defenseless against De La Hoya's flurries, and as Vargas covered up, semiconscious against the ropes, referee Joe Cortez saved him.

Ten rounds of back and forth action, followed by what was essentially a one-punch knockout. Excellent fight. And we have a new Ring Magazine junior middleweight champion of the world. You just knew these two would deliver.

I have yet to see De La Hoya-Vargas on tape. I really am curious to see how many of those shots I gave Vargas credit for landing were actually landing cleanly. Because De La Hoya spent pivotal moments of the fight on the ropes, it seemed from ringside that it was one of those fights that might look very different depending on which side of the ring it was viewed from. This may be a case where a viewer gets a more accurate score from television than from press row.

A few more thoughts...