It was a fight nearly two years in the making, but less than two minutes into the much-anticipated battle between the trash-talking slugger Ricardo Mayorga and the pedigreed boxer-promoter Oscar De La Hoya, boxing's Golden Boy made a definitive statement.

Working a series of short, inside punches, De La Hoya thrilled the large crowd at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas by knocking Mayorga to the canvas with a stiff left hook. Mayorga recovered, but the tone of the fight - a technical mismatch between the potent boxer and the wild-throwing brawler - was set.

By the sixth round, it was clear that Mayorga was outboxed, outclassed and simply outdone. De La Hoya was relentless, eventually stopping him in the middle of the sixth. Next up for De La Hoya could be a mega fight with pound for pound greatest fighter Floyd Mayweather.