LAS VEGAS — If Oscar De La Hoya has any judgment or instinct left, Sunday will be the first day of the rest of his life.

He becomes a full-time promoter now, and in that vein he must look at the stagnant, 35-year-old victim of Saturday night's astonishing main event and conclude that there is no hope or credibility left.

For the first time in De La Hoya's 16-year, 45-bout professional career, he was not competitive at any point of a boxing match.

Heavily favored against Manny Pacquiao, who weighed in at 129 pounds just two fights ago, De La Hoya never threatened the Filipino southpaw and, in a nightmarish seventh round, lost all methods of self-defense.

And as De La Hoya was being pounded by perhaps 30 consecutive punches, thrown by a man who comes from a Pacific archipelago that most of the exulting fans couldn't find on a map, De La Hoya must have wondered what nation he was visiting.

The Olympic hero of 1992, and a spectacular businessman who has shown a generation of boxers that they don't have to retire in dementia or dependence, was being pelted with the type of crowd contempt that never visited Muhammad Ali and Ray Leonard in their final days.

It ended with De La Hoya on his stool, quietly telling his cornermen that it was over, that there was no point in pantomime, no need for a ninth round.

Trainer Nacho Beristain informed the officials, and De La Hoya got up, and he and Pacquiao met in the middle of the ring and embraced.

De La Hoya took a precautionary visit to a local hospital afterward, accompanied by manager Richard Schaefer.

And suddenly all references to Oscar shifted from "is" to "was."

Light-heavyweight champ Bernard Hopkins, who works for Golden Boy Promotions, said, "Oscar had a hell of a career. A 10-time champion. Some people won't have a chance to win one. But for everyone in the business, sometimes, those nights, they come."

"At Golden Boy we have a lot more to be happy about than to be disappointed with."

"Oscar gave so many different people so many chances to fight him," Shane Mosley, another Golden Boy employee, said. "We have a lot of good young fighters coming up and Oscar is going to take the lead in promoting those fights."

Epochal trainer Angelo Dundee, brought into Team De La Hoya for this fight, brought his own valedictory: "You have to appreciate what Oscar did for boxing. He gave it a hell of a shot."

Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter, taunted the press: "The media are never wrong. They said this would be a mismatch. And it was a mismatch."

Of course, Arum was DeLa Hoya's promoter during the glory years and bitterly disputed the decisions

Oscar lost to Shane Mosley and Felix Trinidad. Now Arum and De La Hoya are promotional rivals. In these economically stretched times. Both will miss the Golden Boy.

And the media probably had it coming. Some of the same reporters who scoffed at the very principle of this fight will no doubt turn on De La Hoya instead of their own misjudgment.

The secondary victor of the night was Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's trainer, who said from the beginning that De La Hoya had no chance. Roach took no outward glee over the climax, greeting De La Hoya briefly in the ring.

"No hard feelings," Roach said.

"No," De La Hoya said. "You did a great job. I just don't have anything left."

The fight itself was a stark example of a bad moon rising and eclipsing a setting sun.

Pacquiao, at the peak of his game at 29, situated himself just outside De La Hoya's left foot and stifled his jab. He landed money shots in De La Hoya's face in every round, and he was far more calculating and clever than anyone had ever seen him.

The fears were that the hyperactive Pacquiao would leap into De La Hoya's left hook and never get up.

The fears should have been for De La Hoya's safety. He was fighting a two-fisted ghost.

Pacquiao showed up later in a spiffy gray suit. Stephen Espinoza, a legal counsel for Golden Boy promotions, approached Pacquiao and said, "Oscar can't be here, but he wanted to congratulate you. He thinks you'll be a great champion."

Arum, never easy with an olive branch, even sensed the finality.

"We all should remember what Oscar did for this sport, if he is retiring," Arum said. "He was a shining light for the sport."

All of which was a startling reminder of the one thing that waits in predatory ambush for any boxing champion with the heart to take himself to the final bell:

Past tense.